Unintended
by ameliap0nd
Summary: The Doctor has come and gone and Amy has moved to London while she waits and gets a job at Angelo's to pay her rent. Everything was just how it was in Leadworth, until the evening she meets Sherlock Holmes.
1. Chapter 1

When Amelia Pond was nineteen, her imaginary friend came back to find her and save her along with the rest of the world. They had the adventure she so desperately wanted that day but then it was over almost as soon as it began. He flew off in his time machine again to who knows where or when. All that mattered was he left her again. For the first few days after he left, she waited patiently for him each night. She slept in her clothes and had more packed in a bag beneath her bed so she didn't have to waste any time getting out of Leadworth and in to the stars with the Doctor. After a couple weeks she started sleeping in her nightie but the case stayed. And it stayed packed under her bed until two months later when she and her boyfriend, Rory Williams, packed it and several other cases up to take with them when they moved to London.  
Rory was sweet. Rory was kind. Rory wasn't the most handsome man in the little village of Leadworth, but he was one of the only true friends she had. They met when they were seven and became fast friends. He played along with her when she wanted him to dress up as the Raggedy Doctor. He stood up for her when other kids picked on her. He helped her tame their friend Mels, who was Leadworth's one wild child. He didn't question her decision to go from Amelia to just Amy. At some point, maybe at the very beginning, Rory fell in love with Amy. She was never sure if she loved Rory the way he loved her, or if she ever would, but she did love him. And there was something so beautiful about him that she couldn't put her finger on.  
After secondary school, Rory decided he wanted to be a nurse. Amy wasn't surprised when he told her. It was the perfect job for him and he never could resist a damsel in distress. When they were young, he would patch up her scraped knees and elbows. When they got older, he constantly rushed to the aid of women who had dropped their grocery bags or were too drunk to walk home from the pub by themselves at night. He had the biggest heart of any man she had ever met. Except for maybe the Doctor. But it's hard for anyone to have a bigger heart than the man who came hurdling in to her back yard in the middle of the night when she was seven and fixed the crack in her wall that had frightened her more than anything then came back twelve years later to save her again from the terrible things that had come from the crack all those years ago. But Rory was a close second and he was hers so she decided to tag along with him to London. Together they saved up enough money to pay for the first few months' rent of a small flat they found in Central London then headed off. Amy knew deep down in her heart that the Doctor would come back for her someday but she couldn't just sit around waiting for him until he did. Life goes on.  
The flat was tiny, but it had a certain charm. They moved in a few days before Rory started his classes at uni and they spent most of that time watching bad tele and trying to find a job for Amy without much luck. So when Rory started his classes, Amy took the town by herself. The first day on her own was as unsuccessful as the last three with Rory. But the second day was much better. She walked in to a little Italian restaurant called Angelo's. Angelo had a thick Italian accent and a ponytail but despite his grizzly outward appearance, he was a teddybear on the inside and his restaurant reflected that. It was lit with paper lanterns and candles on every table and everything was earthy and warm. Angelo's was the kind of place you would go to on a whim during a first date then come back once a week afterwards. Amy walked in to grab a bite to eat just as Angelo was shooing out another girl.  
"After all I've done for you, you steal money from me?" Angelo shouted as he chased the other girl out the door. Amy pressed herself against one of the tables and tried to stay out of their way as they passed. "And don't you even think about asking for your last paycheck!"

The girl breezed past Amy and pushed her out of the way as she stomped toward the door and slammed it behind her. Angelo shook his hand and put his hands on his hips and watched the girl walk down the street and climb in to a taxi.  
"Is now a bad time to ask about a job?" Amy asked awkwardly.  
"Not at all. It keeps me from having to make a sign." He gave Amy a smile and walked over to the table she was standing by and pulled out a chair for her. "Who might you be?"  
"Amy Pond." She said as she sat down.  
"if I'm not mistaken, that's a Scottish accent you have, Amy." Angelo said then sat down across from her and pulled out a cigarette from behind his ear. He put it between his lips then bent down to the candle on the table and lit it.  
"You aren't mistaken." She said with a smile.  
"What part of Scotland ya from?"  
"I don't remember. I only lived there until I was seven then I moved to Leadworth with my aunt and lived there until about a week ago."  
"So, you're new in town, you need a job, and you've got a Scottish accent? I think you're just what I'm looking for. When can you start?"  
"As soon as you'd like."  
Angelo smiled at her as he exhaled his smoke and shook Amy's hand excitedly. Amy came in to Angelo's the next day a couple hours before they opened for lunch and was quickly taught the basics. Angelo started her out slowly by giving her the couples tables and the regulars who had been around for several new waiters and waitresses that had come along before her. Amy was a quick learner and got the hang of things quickly. After a couple of weeks, she had regulars that came just to see her. Everyone loved Angelo's Scottish waitress with her long legs, fiery red hair and sassy personality.  
"God must have been smiling on me the day he sent an angel like you walking through my doors." Angelo told her with a wink one Friday night as they were helping clean up after the last swarm of Amy's admirers had left.  
A couple months had gone by and Amy and Rory had started to fall in to a routine. He went to school in the day, and worked a few nights a week and Amy mimicked his schedule at work. The nights they had together, they would go to the cinema or they would walk down to Speedy's and get some chips and watch people go by. Amy still dreamt of the day her Raggedy Doctor would come and whisk her off to the stars, but she was content waiting for that day. For now she was happy living a normal life. But things changed the next Wednesday.  
Wednesdays were usually pretty uneventful. Rory got up early in the morning for classes then came home to have lunch with Amy before she left for work then it was back to classes and off to work for Amy. She arrived dressed in her typical work uniform; a white button up shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, a black skirt with the hem stopping mid-thigh, black tights and black lace up boots, and helped Angelo and the other waitress called Kaylie get the tables ready. The lunch crowd was nothing special, just her usual Wednesday regulars and some tourists. Amy expected the dinner crowd to be about the same. Wednesdays were almost always uneventful. For the first half of dinner, it was. Then Amy saw_ him._  
Billy, one of the waiters that worked the dinner shift, opened the door for him and his friend and pointed them toward the table against the windows that were adjacent to the door. He thanked Billy and slid in to the booth as he shook off his coat and pulled his scarf from around his neck and sat them next to him. Billy walked back in to the kitchen where Angelo was checking on the cooks and I was waiting for an order.  
"Mr. Holmes is here." Billy said to Angelo quietly. Angelo lit up immediately, wiped his hands on his apron and headed out in to the dining room to great him.  
"What's so special about him?" She asked him.  
"Mr. Holmes helped keep Angelo out of prison three years ago. Well, sort of. Angelo was arrested as a suspect for a triple homicide but Mr. Holmes proved that he was on the completely other side of London at the time housebreaking. Angelo paid a short visit to the prison for that but for the most part his name was cleared. Now Mr. Holmes is a semi-regular around here and never pays a dime." Billie told her.  
"So he's a cop?" Amy asked, completely unimpressed by this Mr. Holmes.  
"Nope." He replied.  
"If he's not a cop then how did he keep Angelo from being convicted of murder? Isn't that what cops are for?" Amy's curiosity started to come out.

"He's some kind of private detective." He said and gathered up menus to take out to Mr. Holmes' table.  
"But the police don't go to private detectives. You're full of shit, Billy!" She laughed and snatched the menus out of his hand playfully.  
"Well, they go to him." Billy told her and opened the door for her. Amy raised an eyebrow at him then walked out in to the dining room toward Angelo who was talking to Mr. Holmes and his friend. She rolled her shoulders back and put on a smile and worked the crowd as she went, saying hello to familiar faces and greeting newcomers. She crossed the dining room and stood next to Angelo while he spoke to Mr. Holmes.  
"Anything on the menu, I'll cook it for you myself, for free." Angelo said and patted him on the back then he wrapped his hands around Amy's shoulders and gave her a little shake. "Just tell the lovely Amy Pond what you'd like. Oh, and I'll get a candle for the table. It's more romantic."  
Angelo left Amy alone with the two men and the table. She started her normal routine of introducing the specials for the evening and asking them what they wanted to drink. The whole time, Mr. Holmes stared intently at the window as if he was waiting for someone.  
"Is someone else joining you two?" Amy asked flirtatiously.  
"No, don't mind him." The detective's friend said and gave her a warm smile. "I'll just have a pint of whatever you have at the bar. What about you, Sherlock?"  
"Nothing for me, thanks." Sherlock turned his head and met Amy's eyes and gave her a small smile. Amy felt her breath hitch in her throat. Sherlock looked nothing like what she thought a detective would with his ice blue eyes peaking out from under his almost black curls. His pale skin almost matched the cream colored button up shirt he wore underneath his suit jacket. Amy had to keep herself from reaching out and tracing his cheekbones. He was probably just shy of being ten years older than she was but that didn't phase Amy one bit. But the way he looked at her for that brief moment did.  
"Are you sure?" She asked and slid a menu in front of both men then put her hands on her hips in an effort to keep her confident appearance even though she thought her heart was going to beat through her chest.  
He quickly replied, "yep," and turned his attention back to the street outside the window.  
"One pint coming right up then," she paused and waited for the detective's friend to fill in the blank with his own name.  
"John," he said and stuck out his hand. "John Watson."  
Amy shook his hand and smiled at him. "Nice to meet you, John Watson," she said before turning around and heading back toward the bar to drop of the drink order then to the kitchen to find Angelo.  
"I see you've met Sherlock." Angelo laughed when Amy caught up with him.  
"Who is he?" She asked and leaned back against the counter next to him.  
"He's a detective. The best one there is. I'd be in prison right now if it weren't for him." Angelo said earnestly.  
"So he's really a detective?" She asked with her eyebrow raised.  
"I see Billy has brought you up to date on things. Remind me to scold him for that." He replied, sounding slightly annoyed. "Why are you so interested in Sherlock Holmes? I thought you had a boyfriend, Amelia!"  
"I'm just curious is all. You don't meet private detectives every day." She winked at him then darted back out to the detective's table to take their order.  
"You might as well eat," He said to John when Amy arrived. "We might be here for a while."  
"Are you going to?" John asked.  
"What day is it?" Sherlock's eyes were still fixed on the street outside. John looked at his phone to check the day and repeated the information. Sherlock shook his head and said, "No, thanks. I'm okay for a bit."  
"You haven't eaten yet today? For God's sake, you need to eat!" John exclaimed.  
"No, you need to eat. I need to think. The brain is what counts. Everything else is transport." Sherlock replied hastily.  
"You might want to consider refueling." Amy shrugged. She could see him smirk and let out a little laugh as a reply. She raised her eyebrows at him then turned back to John and said, "What can I get you then?"  
John rattled off his order to her then closed his menu and handed both his and Sherlock's back to her. "Sorry about him," he said and tilted his head in Sherlock's direction. "I don't think he's always like this."  
"Hm, interesting." Amy said, eyeing up the detective. She excused herself to take their order back to the kitchen and put the order in with the cooks then snuck behind the bar where Sarah, one of the other waitresses Amy worked with, was pouring drinks for a few guests. Amy sat on the floor with her back against the bar and waited for Sarah to finish.

"What did you do, Amy?" Sarah questioned when she finally noticed her on the floor.  
"Don't be obvious, but look at the table by the window where the two men are sitting." Amy replied.  
"What's so special about them?"  
"The dark-haired one."  
"Amy, need I remind you that you have a boyfriend?"  
"A girl can dream."

Sarah shook her head at Amy and went back to pouring drinks. Amy remained under the bar and waited for John's food to come out. She couldn't figure out why she was so transfixed by Sherlock Holmes. Sure, he was absolutely gorgeous, but it wasn't that. There was something about the way he looked at her in that brief moment, like he could see straight in to her and straight through her. Amy had gotten used to the majority of men who walked through the doors of Angelo's to shower her with attention, not because she demanded it or expected it from anyone, just because it had become the norm. But Sherlock Holmes barely looked at her and she felt her heart leap in to her mouth. But she wasn't going to give up. She wanted to know more about the genius detective and she liked a good challenge.

oOo

"Enjoy," Amy said with a grin as she set down John's food in front of him and a cup of tea in front of Sherlock. "Just in case," she told him and nodded to Sherlock.  
"Thank you, Amy." John said and winked at her.  
Amy walked through the dining room checking on other tables, delivering drinks and food, but she kept a constant eye on Sherlock and John's table. John ate quietly, speaking to Sherlock every once in a while, but the detective kept his eyes fixed on something outside. Suddenly, he jumped up while throwing his coat over his shoulders, grabbed his scarf and bolted out the door. John awkwardly pushed his plate of half eaten food away and hurried after him as best as he could.  
"He must be on a case," Angelo said from behind Amy causing her to jump a little.  
"Angelo, you can't keep sneaking up on me like that!" She chided him and smacked his arm.  
"Sorry. I didn't know you were so caught up in staring at Sherlock that you didn't hear me walk up to you." He joked. She glared at him playfully then started walking toward the table where John and Sherlock were sitting to clear it off. Angelo followed behind and blew out the candle on the table before helping Amy gather dishes. "I wouldn't get my hopes up about Sherlock if I were you, Amelia," he said quietly.  
"Who said anything about me getting my hopes up?" She asked sternly.  
"No one, I'm just giving you some friendly advice. Sherlock is an odd one in good ways and in bad ways. That's all I'm saying." He said then turned around and wandered off. Amy huffed and started to clean up the table. She picked up John's plate and balanced it on one arm then reached for Sherlock's still warm cup of tea. She began to wonder if he even noticed she had set it down for him until she saw the napkin that had been under it. Before he left, Sherlock scribbled a quick _Thank you_ on it before dashing out of the restaurant. Amy smiled and tucked the napkin in to her skirt pocket. Sherlock Holmes got more mysterious by the minute and she wanted to figure him out.  
The rest of the night was uneventful in comparison. Amy waited on tables and helped Sarah at the bar until closing time. She helped Billy clean off tables and carry dishes back to the kitchen for washing then said her goodbyes and went back in to Angelo's office where everyone stored their coats while they worked and grabbed hers. She decided to skip getting a cab and walk home instead. She looked up at the stars and wondered if the Doctor was up there or if he was off in some other galaxy saving the world there. Every time she looked at the stars, she missed him. She knew deep down that he would come back, he promised, but she never knew how long she would be waiting for him. She sighed and shoved her hands in her pockets then remembered the "thank you" note from Sherlock. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She knew that she could be waiting for a while, but maybe now she has something to help her pass the time.  
Rory was already in bed by the time she got home so she kicked off her shoes and threw her coat over the back of a chair in their tiny kitchen then padded her way back to their bedroom. Rory was waiting up for her with a book of medical terms cracked open on his lap. Amy curled up next to him and kissed his cheek.  
"How were classes?" She asked as she slid under the covers.  
"Fine. Lots of medical, uh, stuff." He shrugged.  
"And you understand none of it." She deadpanned.  
"Not yet, but I will." He laughed. "How was work?"  
"Oh, you know how boring it is on Wednesdays. Today wasn't much different." She lied.  
"Well tomorrow is your day off so I'll take you some place not boring." He said and gave her a soft kiss. He closed his textbook and laid it on the table next to the bed and shut the light off. He slid down next to Amy and wrapped his arms around her and before long was snoring in her ear. Eventually Amy drifted off to sleep too and instead of dreaming about the Doctor, she dreamed of roaming the streets of London with Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, solving crimes and having adventures that come second only to traveling through time and space in a blue box.


	2. Chapter 2

"She's quite nice." John said to Sherlock as Amy walked away. He caught himself watching her hips swing back and forth as she walked past other tables. Sherlock nodded but didn't look away from 22 Northumberland Street. "She brought you a cup of tea."

"I didn't ask for tea." Sherlock quickly pointed out.  
"But it was still nice of her to bring you some after hearing you haven't eaten for days." John replied and took a bite of his food. Sherlock remained silent and focused while John ate. After a while he took a sip of his lager then looked at Sherlock and said, "You could at least tell her thank you for bringing you tea."  
Just as John spoke, something outside caught Sherlock's attention. John looked out the window without seeing anything then looked back at Sherlock for answers. "Look, a taxi stopped across the street. Nobody getting in, nobody getting out. Why a taxi?" he said half to John and half to himself, then nodded toward the cab that had parked right outside of 22 Northumberland St. He stared at the cab for a few seconds before something clicked. "Oh that's clever. Is it clever? Why is it clever?" He mumbled to himself.

"That's him?" John asked and looked over his shoulder at the cab and saw nothing out of the ordinary. The cabbie was probably just stopped to look for a fair, not to kill anyone and assumed Sherlock was jumping to conclusions.  
"Don't stare." Sherlock told him, his eyes still fixed on the cab.  
"What? You're staring." John reminded him.  
"We can't both stare." Sherlock said and grabbed his coat.  
John grabbed Sherlock's arm and stopped him, receiving a glare from the detective. "Wait, at least tip the girl or something before storming off! You ignored her and she still brought you a cup of tea," he said as if he was scolding a child.  
"There's a murderer across the street and you're worried about tipping our waitress? It must be the hemline of her skirt." Sherlock scoffed and tried to push past him.  
"No, it's the fact that she was nice. That cab isn't going anywhere so just do it." John said sternly. Sherlock glared at him for a moment before pulling a pen out of his pocket and quickly scribbling "Thank you" on to a napkin on the table then putting the cup of tea over it. Then both he and John threw their coats over themselves and headed after the cab. Sherlock archived Amy Pond in his mind for future reference in case he ever needed her. He doubted he would, seeing as she was obviously new in town judging by her accent and probably had nowhere near the intellect he possessed, not that many other people did anyway. There was something about her, he admitted, that interested him. When he locked eyes with her for a brief moment, he could see a spark. She was strong-willed and she was curious. But there was something else that he just couldn't place. Something about the way she was perpetually moving and how she moved was off. But he had a murdered to catch, so he pushed her out of the foreground of his mind and and focused on chasing down the runaway cab.  
A couple weeks later, Sherlock and John were running through the streets again, this time chasing after a wayward suspect of their latest case. The two of them split up in an effort to corral the suspect to where they could capture him. But somehow he caught on and managed to evade Sherlock and John's plan. Sherlock stopped halfway through an alley and tried to figure out where the man could have gone. He closed his eyes and pressed is fingers in to his temples, quickly visualizing possible routes in his mind. When he realized he couldn't catch up he spat out a string of curse words then put his hands on his hips and tried to catch his breath.  
"Hello, Mister Sherlock Holmes," a woman's voice rang out.  
Sherlock made a quick deduction of who it could be and spun around to see if he was right. And he was. "Hello, Amy," he said with a smirk. She was leaning against doorframe of the back door at Angelo's smoking a cigarette.  
"Fancy a smoke?" she asked. Pulling another cigarette from behind her ear, she held it out in his direction and waited for him to accept it.  
"I'm a little busy." He replied.  
"You don't look like it." She countered. "You were just standing here in the middle of the street."  
"I'm on a case." He told her sternly.  
"Do most of your cases involve you running through back alleys of central London or are you just making up excuses to say hello?" She winked at him then took a drag.  
He walked over to her and took the cigarette from her and put it between his lips. She dug a lighter out of her pocket and flicked it on, then reached toward him. He bent down and dipped the end of his cigarette in to the flame then inhaled deeply.  
"And why would I want to say hello to you? I barely know you." He mused. As he spoke, smoke melted out of his mouth and in to the brisk London air.  
"You tell me." Amy replied and cocked her head. He laughed inhaled another lung full of smoke. "I hear you're good at that."  
"Good at what?" He asked.

"Telling people things that you know about them." She said.  
He rolled his eyes at and corrected her. "I don't know, I _notice_."  
"Well, what do you notice about me then?" She asked, unfazed by his harshness. Sherlock was intrigued by her challenge. No one had ever asked him to tell them what he thought when he saw them. Admittedly, they didn't have to. Sherlock would be spouting off the things he noticed before anyone had the chance to give him an invitation or even tell him not to. But usually when he deduced things about people they brushed him off or complained to him about what a show off he was.  
He took a few steps back from her and eyed her up and down, taking in every inch of what he saw and rattled off his deductions as he went. He can tell just by looking at her that she's young. Early twenties at the oldest. Her skirt was designer, but a few years old and looked as though she had tailored it herself recently to make it fit, so it was most likely from a charity shop. With the tips she's making due to her popularity with the men who come in to the restaurant, she should be able to afford at least a _decent _skirt that would fit her but all her money is probably going to pay the majority, if not all, of the rent for her flat that she shares with her boyfriend somewhere in nearby Central London. She smirked and flicked the ashes off the end of her cigarette. "Who said anything about a boyfriend?" She inquired.  
Sherlock pointed out that while she was flirtatious with the men who came in to Angelo's, she never gave her number to them or kept their numbers when they gave them to her and there was an indent on her left ring finger where a ring has been. So clearly she was attached elsewhere and it was serious enough that she didn't wander off but she kept all of that to herself. And she had her fair share of secrets, like her arbitrary smoking habit.  
"I'm smoking out in the open in broad daylight." Amy pointed out and took a drag to prove her point.  
"You hide your cigarettes behind your ear. But you're clever. You know when and where you can smoke and get away with it. And you obviously don't do it often. No tobacco stains on your fingers, no rush to finish your cigarette. You smoke because you want to, not because you have to." He said.  
"Is that it?" She asked. Sherlock was started by how unimpressed she sounded.  
"What do you mean?" He sputtered out.  
"Anyone could figure out that I have a boyfriend and flat in Central London. I expected more from you, Mr. Holmes." Her eyes met his and she dared him wordlessly to go farther. So he looked at her again. This time from the inside out. He held her gaze and found his way inside her mind.  
"You're waiting for something." He told her. "You've been waiting for a while. I can see it in the way you stand."  
"Explain." She demanded. She wasn't going to let him get away with making long shot guesses and having them proven right by her. But he had gotten her attention again and he was pleased about that, so he complied.  
"You hold yourself with confidence but you're always jumping from one thing to another. You're never content sitting still. In fact, it's the one time you're scared and unsure because your mind can wander. You're never intimidated by anyone. Well, except for yourself. And you're always moving. You're waiting for something and you're bored of biding you time. You're ready to run at any moment. you're just waiting for the right thing to run after. Or from." He watched her eyes go wide as he spoke. He must have been dead on. "Was I right?" He asked her. Amy dropped her cigarette and ground it in to the concrete beneath them with the toe of her boot then nodded.  
"You're absolutely right about me." Amy simply said without a hint of any emotion in her voice.  
"I usually am right about people." Sherlock told her. "It is my job, after all."  
"But you seem to know all about me from your own experiences." She noted.  
Sherlock took one last drag from his cigarette before flicking it off in to the distance and turning back to Amy. "And what makes you think that?" He asked, seemingly unconvinced that she was doing much more than guessing.  
"Because you can't say no to a challenge; anything to keep your mind busy. You don't like being bored just as much as me. We just have different reasons to want to be distracted." She said. Sherlock was listened to her with rapt attention. He had pinned her as clever but maybe he had underestimated her. He watched her take in his reaction and revel in it. "Was I right?" She purred and took a step toward him so they were almost touching. With her this close, he realized that she was almost level with him. At six feet tall, Sherlock normally had a few inches on those around him, especially women. But once again, Amy proved herself to be unlike any woman he had met before and she knew it. Sherlock smirked and spun around and started walking off.  
"Get back to work, Ms. Pond." He called back to her as he walked away.  
"Same to you, Mr. Holmes." She yelled back. He waited until he heard her walk inside and close the door behind her before he looked over his shoulder for a brief second. There was something about her that fascinated him. Most women either threw themselves at him or avoided him entirely but Amy looked at him like he looked at the evidence at a crime scene. She was curious, she wanted to figure him out. Her body language showed obvious signs of attraction toward him but her curiosity overpowered it. _Interesting, _he thought to himself. Just then his phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw John's name flash across the screen.  
"Where have you gone off to?" John asked in between gulps of air when Sherlock answered.  
"Our suspect ran off so I stopped to have a chat with our friend, Amy." He said.  
"Amy? The waitress from Angelo's?" John asked.  
"Seeing as she is the only Amy we both know, that is an excellent deduction, John." Sherlock answered. John could almost hear him smirking through the phone. He tried not to roll his eyes and remember that in contras to what Sherlock normally said it could easily count as a compliment.  
"Well, what about our suspect? I ran half of London to catch him!" John said, trying not to be annoyed.  
"Oh, he'll be easy enough to catch. Might as well get some lunch in the mean time. How does Chinese sound to you?" Sherlock replied.  
John sighed and said, "Fine, I'll meet you there in ten minutes," then ended the call. Sherlock stuffed his phone back in his pocket and started walking toward the Chinese place right around the corner from 221B Baker St.  
Sherlock beat John there and sat down at a cozy table in the corner. A tiny Asian women scuttled over to him and placed a menu on his table. He slid it over to John's side and and busied himself by checking up on cases on his phone. John walked through the doors a few moments later and sat down across from Sherlock. He picked up the menu and began skimming through it without saying a word.  
"I don't know why you look at the menu. You get the same thing here every time." Sherlock said without looking up from his phone.  
Unperturbed, John shrugged and said, "You don't know that for sure."  
"Yes I do." Sherlock said. John opened his mouth to protest but he realized it would be useless and he didn't want to be the demise of Sherlock not calling him an idiot for the past two days. John wasn't sure if he was getting better at being the detective's assistant or if he was just getting used to having John around. Either way, it was nice John decided. The pair sat in silence, absorbed in their own little worlds, until a waiter came around to take their orders. As Sherlock predicted, John had ordered the same thing he always did.  
"Knew it," he said under his breath.  
"Did you say something?" John asked.  
"Not a word." Sherlock replied.

"Right. So what were chatting with Amy about?" John inquired. When they ate at Angelo's that night, he could tell that Amy was interested in Sherlock. Now he was starting to wonder if Sherlock was becoming interested in Amy, too. Just when John had started to believe Sherlock was oblivious to the fact that love existed, or even lust, he was proved wrong. There was just no being right when it came to Sherlock.  
"She asked me to deduce some things about her, so I did." Sherlock said nonchalantly as if something like that happened all the time.  
"She asked you to show off? No wonder you fancy her," John mumbled.  
"You think I fancy her because she wanted me to 'show off'?" Sherlock asked, slightly annoyed. If anything, he thought, John should be thinking that Amy fancied him. She was the one that asked, after all. He was just doing the polite thing and fulfilling her request.  
"No," John corrected. "I think you fancy her because she _asked._"  
Still unamused Sherlock asked, "Why would that make me _fancy _her, John?"

"Because how often do people ask for you to look at them then repeat every one of their secrets and habits that you notice back to then noticing how badly they want to punch you in the face afterward?" John pointed out. "You can't tell me that doesn't make you like her just a little bit."

"She's interesting and clever, I'll give her that. But that isn't enough to insinuate that I'm interested in her romantically or attracted to her. Make sure you have sufficient evidence before you make a claim, John." Sherlock said, quite annoyed. He was Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective. He had more important things to worry about than a waitress and if she was attracted to him or him to her. He never saw the point in any of it. Why would anyone want to dedicate their time and emotions to someone who is bound to leave you one way or another? It was all so boring and mundane. He didn't bother with it and he wasn't about to start.

John rolled his eyes and said, "Forget I even mentioned it."  
For the rest of the meal they focused on their latest case and what their next attempt at apprehending their suspect would be. John worried that he would be halfway across England by now but Sherlock quickly dismissed it and reminded him that they were chasing a drug dealer and that all his connections were here. He'd be in more danger if he left. When their food came John finally had an excuse to tune out and let Sherlock ramble on in between bites.  
After their meal, they caught a cab and returned to 221B Baker Street. When they arrived home, Sherlock excused himself, telling John he needed to think for a bit. John nodded and went to fetch him some nicotine patches. He had started to hide them from Sherlock a few weeks after he moved in when he noticed Sherlock increasing his dosage drastically. John scolded him and told him that the patches were supposed to help him quit smoking, not give him something else to get addicted to in its place. Sherlock allowed John to "hide" them just to mollify his worries. Obviously Sherlock knew where John had stashed them and snuck a few out when John was preoccupied with other things.  
Sherlock unwound his scarf and slid out of his coat while John got the patches. The frustration that bubbled up inside Sherlock only amplified his desire for the patches or better yet, an actual cigarette. He crossed his arms and drummed his fingers against his elbow while we waited to try to keep his urge to yell bottled up. When John returned, Sherlock hastily grabbed the patches from John's hands and headed for his room. Once inside, he sat at the edge of his bed, rolled up his sleeve then scattered the three patches John allotted him along his forearm. He then kicked off his shoes and reclined back on to the bed and waited for the buzz of the nicotine to spread through him. He closed his eyes, pressed his hands together and lightly touched both his pointer fingers to his lips. When the warmth of the nicotine buzz finally pulsed through his entire body, he closed his eyes and retreated in to his mind.  
For most people thought takes some effort. You had to pick memories out of their hiding places or wait for something to remind you that some of your memories even existed. For Sherlock it was like watching someone else flip through channels on the telly. It was a never ending scrapbook of everything Sherlock had seen, read and heard that was still relevant, useful, or interesting. Everything was organized in to categories for easy access and storage. Sherlock knew how powerful his mind was and he'd gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure he could use it properly. When things in his head became boring or had lost their purpose for being there, he deleted them and made room for new and exciting things.  
He began to flip through the information for his current case, trying to formulate a plan to recapture their suspect. He went over what the man had been wearing, his crimes, his pattern of behavior and linked things together. He predicted where he would go, who he would see, what he would do and made a map of it in his mind. Catching him was just a matter of picking a point on that map and planning his own route that would converge on to that point when his suspect would be there. Doing so took much less time than he expected but he didn't feel like interacting with John or giving up the warming buzz of the patches. But even three patches couldn't substitute how wonderful the cigarette Amy had given him earlier was. That combined with being to use his mind on someone who was receptive was a kind of high he hadn't felt since his days of being strung out in the streets with a needle still stuck in his arm. Suddenly his mind veered away from Amy leaning in against the frame of the back door at Angelo's to himself stumbling down dark and narrow alleyways in search for his next fix. Anything to get himself out of his mind or at least to quiet it down for a little while. These were memories he couldn't delete, no matter how hard he tried. So he locked them away and ignored them. But they never failed to come back and haunt him. Sherlock was his very own ghost. These memories were the reason he didn't let his mind wander much. He knew he could never escape himself, but he could do his best to out run his demons. Suddenly John's voice jarred him back in to reality.  
"Sherlock, Lestrade in on the phone." John said. One hand was holding the phone out to him, the other was wrapped around his shoulder. He must have tried to shake Sherlock awake. "It's about the case."  
Sherlock nodded and took the phone from his hands. John gave him a concerned once over then turned around and left the detective's room. Sherlock's conversation with Lestrade was borderline ordinary compared to their usual. Lestrade asked how it was going with he and John being flatmates and Mrs. Hudson then told Sherlock that he and his wife were going to couple's counseling to reconcile. Sherlock listed off everything he knew about the suspect and how to get to him. Together they organized a clever plan to distract and capture him and Lestrade began organizing his men to get it all accomplished. Sherlock told him to call if he needed anything then hung up and went to the living room to give John his phone back. John sat in his chair hunched over his computer when Sherlock walked in and handed him his phone.  
"Thank you," John said and tucked it in to his pocket. Sherlock nodded and crossed the room to take his seat. He looked back over to John and was met with worried eyes. "Is everything all right?" John asked tentatively.  
"I'm fine," Sherlock said. "Why do you ask?"  
"When I came in to give you the phone, you looked upset." John said and looked back down at his computer screen.  
"I was just thinking. And now that's I'm not, I'm bored. Why is there never anything to do?" Sherlock complained and slid farther down in to the chair hoping to avoid talking to John about the skeletons in his closet.  
"We could play Cluedo," John suggested.  
"What the hell is Cluedo?" Sherlock asked. John explained and Sherlock delightfully agreed knowing that his intellect would give him the upper advantage. As John went to look for the game, Amy's words rang through Sherlock head; _Anything to keep your mind busy. You don't like being bored just as much as me. _Sherlock chuckled. There was some comfort in knowing that he wasn't the only one doing whatever he could to keep himself distracted. A few blocks away, she was probably bringing food to tables or sitting in her apartment blazing through a book. Maybe someday he would figure out a way to use Amy's cleverness to his advantage. Until then, he would tuck her away somewhere in his mind and Cluedo would have to suffice in taking the edge off.


	3. Chapter 3

**Authors note:****  
First of all, thank you all so much for reading and reviewing and adding my story to your favorites. You are all so lovely and I appreciate everything so much. If you have any feedback or ideas for me, feel free to leave it with your review or message it to me. I'd be happy to read it. :)  
Secondly, there is a bit of violence in this chapter. It's nothing too graphic and I assume that people expect it with a Sherlock/Wholock fic, but I just wanted to give people a heads up just incase. I rated it T for a reason so just be aware of that if you're sensitive to violence or blood.  
Enjoy!**

A month and a half after she had offered Sherlock a cigarette in the alley behind Angelo's, Amy was getting ready to go out on her first girls' night since moving to London. She and Mels had been planning one for a while but since Mels was still living in Leadworth, it would be a while until she could save up and visit. So Amy spent most of her time at her flat when she wasn't working. On the rare occasion that she and Rory had coinciding time off, he took her out to where ever she wanted to go. But Amy was still lonely and still waiting for the day the Doctor came and saved her from her drab life.  
She had been working at Angelo's for a few months but it took some time for her to fit in with the other girls who worked with her. Amy was outspoken and confident; she wasn't afraid to sit next to a stranger at the bar on her break and sip a pint while she conversed with them. The other girls were much more posh to say the least. Sarah was the one exception. Sarah was at the midway point between Amy and the rest of the girls and successfully became the bridge needed to bring them all together. Eventually the other girls came around to Amy and decided they needed to show her around London properly. They picked a Saturday night that Rory had to work late so Amy wouldn't miss any quality time with him and planned for then. When that Saturday rolled around, Amy was dressing for her night out as Rory was putting on his scrubs. He popped in to the bathroom before leaving to kiss her goodbye as he always did.  
"Try not to get too crazy tonight," he joked as he slid his coat on.  
"Same goes for you," she replied with a grin knowing that the night shift at the hospital was usually quite dull. On Saturday nights it was just drunks who had too much to drink and managed to get themselves in to some sort of bad situation that caused them to show up in the ER. The one good thing that came from Rory working the night shift was the interesting stories he had to tell the next morning.  
"I'll try not to," Rory said and winked. "Don't forget to take your phone with you in case of emergencies."  
"I won't. I'll see you when you get home." Amy told him then gave him a quick peck on the lips.  
"See you," he said then slid out of the bathroom and went off to work.  
Amy left the flat about twenty minutes later and headed to Angelo's to meet up with the girls that were going tonight and to say hello to the ones who weren't fortunate enough to have the night off. Knowing that it was a bit of a walk to Angelo's and that she'd be on her feet most of the night she decided to forgo heels and slid in to a pair of boots instead. Not to mention she was almost six feet tall without wearing any shoes and she didn't feel like completely towering over everyone tonight. As she walked, she wrapped her coat tightly around herself. Even though they were coming up on Spring, the weather showed no signs of it. The cold air nipped at the exposed skin on her face and her legs only covered with a pair of black tights and a bit of her dress. She cursed herself for agreeing to go to some fancy club instead of a pub where she could wear a pair of jeans and for not just taking the tube like a sensible person.  
When she got to Angelo's, she quickly hurried inside to give herself as much of a break from the chilly air as she could. Ella and Imogen were waiting for her at the bar, chatting with Summer who was one of the unfortunate ones stuck working. Amy waved and made her way through the maze of tables, saying hello to the customers she recognized. She sat next to Ella who slid a cocktail over to her.  
"Sarah's late so we're punishing her by having free drinks made by our coworkers without her," she explained and took a sip of her own drink.  
"That'll kill her. You know how much she loves free drinks," Amy replied. Imogen and Ella chuckled.  
"A toast to our first real girls' night with Amy!" Imogen declared and held up her glass. Amy and Ella joined in and clinked their glasses against Ella's.  
"Are you really having free drinks without me?" Sarah called from the doorway.  
"Yes." Imogen replied and took a cheeky sip and peeked at Sarah through her platinum blonde fringe.  
"Fine, I'll just go to Opal by myself. I've already got the cab waiting anyway." She replied brazenly then turned and walked back out the door. The three girls at the bar looked at each other excitedly and gulped down their drinks. They said goodbye to Summer and told her to tell the other girls they were sorry they had to leave so soon then hurried outside.  
"We're going to Opal?" Ella asked and she bounced up and down in an effort to keep herself warm. Her chocolate brown hair that was pulled back in to a slick ponytail bobbed along with her.  
"Yes. Now hurry up. This cabbie is kind of pissed at me for smoking in his car and I don't want to owe him anymore money than I have to." Sarah said pushing them across the street where the cab was parked.  
"How did you managed to get us in to Opal?" Imogen asked when they got in to the cab.  
"I have my connections." Sarah said and winked at Imogen then leaned over the seats and gave the cabbie the address.  
"What's so special about Opal?" Amy asked. The three other women turned at her and stared at her quizzically. All of them seemed completely shocked that she had never heard of the club they were going to. "Did you guys forget I'm from Leadworth?"  
"For a moment there we must have because everyone in London knows Opal," Imogen said quickly. Amy wasn't sure if she was trying to make fun of her or just state a fact.  
"What Imogen means is we've been wanting to go there for years," Sarah translated. Amy had a feeling that she was sugar coating it but let it go. She didn't want there to be hard feelings between them and ruin the night over what could easily be construed as a communication problem.  
"And somehow Sarah managed to get us in!" Ella practically squealed. She grabbed Sarah and pulled her in to a tight hug and kissed her cheek. Sarah laughed and swatted her away playfully.  
"So, why are we taking a cab? It would be a short walk." Amy pointed out.  
"Because it's cold and why not? I've got money to spend." Sarah shrugged. "And not all of us wore sensible shoes."

oOo

If you walked by Opal during the day, you wouldn't think much of it. It had the elegance of most other old buildings in London but it didn't look particularly interesting. When you walked inside, however, it became a completely different world. In the bar upstairs, everything inside was black or white and the bartenders and waitresses wore bright pastel colored pin-up inspired outfits. Chandeliers made out of single pieces of round crystal each hung by a string were scattered across the ceiling. Everything about the bar was cozy and reminded Amy of Angelo's on a much grander scale. The four women checked their coats then made their way to the bar to order their first round before heading in to the club downstairs. Ella, Imogen and Sarah all ordered fancy cocktails while Amy ordered a pint.  
"You're so Scottish," Sarah said as Amy took her first sip.  
After they finished off their first round and a shot for good luck, the quartet pushed their way through the ever thickening crowd to the stairs that lead to the club a floor below them. The first set of stairs lead down to the upper balcony of the club. Amy went over to the railing and looked around. The same chandeliers from upstairs were also in the club, framing a enormous disco ball with different colored lights beaming off it. The club was mostly dark except for the bits of refracted light from the disco ball and a few colored lights. Everything in the club was black and silver and it all seemed to be alive. All the silver décor reflected light from some other place in the club and made everything glimmer. Big stone walls with archways lead to different private rooms making it seem as if the club stretched on forever. Eventually Sarah grabbed Amy's hand and pulled her down the next set of stairs to the dance floor to see for herself.  
It was barely Saturday night anymore by the time they stepped on the floor and the entire club was packed. People were dancing in tight knit groups from wall to wall. Groups of friends pressed together and swayed with the beat of the music blasting through a stack of huge speakers. Couples were entwined with each other and seemed to be unaware that there was a whole world outside of just them. People were meeting for the first time and sharing drinks and dances. To Amy, everyone there looked important, like the owned businesses or walked the runway at Fashion Week. Most of the men there were wearing expensive looking button up shirts, some of them were still wearing their suit jackets over them, and a pair of designer jeans. A small smile spread across Amy's face. All the men in Opal were dressed like Sherlock Holmes from the waist up. She hadn't thought about him much since the day she talked to him in the alley but now she wondered what he was getting in to tonight to keep his mind occupied. Maybe if she was lucky she'd run in to him chasing a crook through the streets again and tell him how night club chic he was. But she had to admit, Sherlock looked much better in his suits then these men did in theirs.  
Sarah lead the group through the crowd of men in button up shirts and women in short cocktail dresses so they were directly beneath the oversized disco ball and started dancing. Ella followed her example and danced with her. Ella's hands held on to Sarah's hips and they swayed together. Imogen was quickly snatched up by a decent looking bloke in a navy blue button up shirt, leaving Amy to fend for herself. She stood near Sarah and Ella and began to rock her hips back and forth to get a feel for the music then threw herself in. Her job as a Kiss-O-Gram only taught her a few things that were useful and lucky for her one of those things was how to dance. She was able to gracefully coordinate the movement of her limbs and hips with ease and how to use her never ending legs to her advantage. Soon enough, a man stepped up behind her and held on to her waist. Amy turned around and placed her hands on his shoulder to make sure there was some distance between them. She didn't mind dancing with him but she wasn't going to let him get the wrong impression. The man didn't seem to mind and stuck around until the end of the song. He kissed her hand and thanked her for the dance and walked away. For a moment she thought she would be dancing alone again until she noticed the queue that had formed around her. With a smile, she pointed at one of her suiters and motioned for him to come and dance. It went on like that until Sarah reached over to Amy and pulled her in.

"I'm absolutely parched. How about another round of drinks?" Sarah shouted over the music.

"Yeah, sure." Amy replied, not entirely sure she even heard her right over the thudding bass.

"I'm going to refresh myself then I'll meet you guys at the bar." Ella told them. Sarah grabbed her and gave her a quick peck before letting Ella go off through the crowd. Amy was a bit shocked. She had no idea that there was something going on between the two of them until she saw them kiss. She didn't even know that they were gay. Sarah laughed at Amy's dumbfounded expression then turned to Imogen to tell her they would be at the bar. Imogen nodded and kept on dancing. Sarah grabbed Amy's hand and pulled her through the crowd and to the stairs. As the night went on, the bar had gotten increasingly busier so Amy and Sarah ordered a couple drinks for themselves and Ella then found an empty booth to sit in.  
"So you and Ella?" Amy asked teased. Sarah blushed and took a sip of her drink without saying anything but she didn't have to for Amy to know Sarah was crazy about Ella. "I had no idea you even liked girls! How long have you two been together?" Amy asked.  
"Well, funny story. You know how I said this night was about taking you out properly?" Sarah said with a guilty smile across her face. Amy nodded and took a drink of her pint. "Well, I lied. I've liked Ella since she started working at Angelo's a year ago but I didn't know if I was even her type. But when I flirted with her she flirted back, so I decided to give it a shot. She's been talking about this place for months and you were the perfect excuse to take her here and ask her on a proper date."  
"She said yes then?" Amy asked eagerly.  
"She said yes!" Sarah exclaimed.  
"Cheers!" Amy said and touched her glass to Sarah's. "And the next round is on me to celebrate."

"You don't have to do that," Sarah said graciously. Amy tried to tell her she didn't mind at all but Sarah cut her off. "However, you do have tell me where you learned to dance like that."  
"I used to be a Kiss-O-Gram before I moved to London," She said, slightly self-conscious. She hadn't told anyone she had met in London about her job in Leadworth. She wasn't ashamed of it, but it wasn't exactly something that she wanted to be known for. London was a fresh start for her and there was no point in letting her past catch up with her if she could help it.  
"Is that like a cheap stripper?" Sarah joked.  
"Very funny," Amy said and shook her head. "I went to parties and I kissed people in different outfits. It was more of a laugh than anything. But sometimes I had to turn on the charm."  
"So you were basically a stripper without the stripping." Sarah said. "That's a bit shit."

"Shut up!" Amy told her and punched her in the arm playfully.  
"It's probably for the best that you're not a stripper. All the men in London would leave their wives and girlfriends in the hopes of you having any interest in them." Sarah told her. Amy rolled her eyes at Sarah's extremely exaggerated statement. Sarah chuckled and checked the time on her watch. "Ella is taking forever. I'm going to go make sure she's alright. Wait here, yeah?" she said. She downed the rest of her drink then stood up and headed off, leaving Amy alone at the booth. Amy sipped her drink and looked around the bar. As she scanned the room, a man at the bar caught her eye and smiled at her. He was watching her watch everyone else as he cleaned out glasses from behind the bar. The man was quite handsome. He was tall and lean and dressed in all black. His long dirty blonde hair was combed back and tucked behind his ears and the light of the chandeliers made his hazel eyes look like they were constantly changing colors. The bartender dried the glass he was cleaning then put it away and came out from around the bar. He cut through groups of people and made his way over to Amy's table.  
"Mind if I join you?" He asked.  
"Not at all." Amy replied.  
The man slid in to the booth where Sarah had been sitting then offered his hand to Amy. "I'm Nick," he told her. Amy took his hand and shook it.  
"Nice to meet you Nick, I'm Amy." She told him.  
"Are you Scottish?" He asked, seemingly surprised by her accent.  
She laughed and said, "Yes I am. What gave it away?"  
"Well, the red hair was my first indicator but your accent really gave it away," he said then gave her a wink. "We don't get many Scots around here."

"Well that's a shame." She replied with a smirk.  
"So what brings you to London?" Nick asked. So Amy explained the very short version of the first eighteen years of her life; she lost her parents when she was seven so she and her aunt moved to Leadworth where she lived until about six months ago. Now she's renting a flat in central London and works as a waitress and bartender at an Italian restaurant. She almost felt guilty leaving out the Doctor considering the huge part he played in her life but it was for the best. She wasn't sure Nick would believe her if she told him that just before she moved to London her imaginary friend came back to save her from an shape-shifting alien prisoner then together they helped save the world from a giant starship hellbent on incinerating the entire planet. Her could feel her heart growing heavy with the weight of missing him so she took two big gulps of her lager.  
"What about you? What's your story?" She asked Nick. She hoped that him talking could give her something else to think about besides how badly she missed her Raggedy Doctor.

Nick told Amy about how he grew up in Essex and worked odd jobs long enough to save up money to buy a train ticket to London and pay for a month's rent in a cheap flat somewhere. He got a job at a shop to make ends meet and started going to uni. After a while, he got bored with school so he dropped out, got a proper day job and worked as a bartender at Opal part time.  
"What's your day job?" Amy asked.  
"Basically just office work." He told her. "I do a lot of running around for my boss."

"Sounds dreadful." She replied and finished off her drink.  
"Do you want me to get you something else to drink? On me, of course." He said and took her glass. Before Amy could answer, Sarah came storming through the bar and was heading straight for the door with Imogen trailing close behind. Amy yelled after them but neither of them turned around. She wasn't sure if they hadn't heard her over all the commotion or if they were just ignoring her.  
"Can you hold that thought? That was a friend of mine and she seemed pissed." Amy said and slid out of the booth. "I'll be right back," she told Nick then chased after Sarah and Imogen as quickly as she could. She caught up with them right outside of the club. Sarah was trying to get a cab and Imogen was trying to talk her out of it.

"Sarah, is everything okay?" Amy asked.  
"No." She replied. Her voice was shaking and Amy could see tears welling up in her eyes.  
"What happened?" Amy asked. She didn't think Ella was hurt or Sarah would have just came to Amy instead of going outside to get a cab so Amy concluded Emma must have done or said something to upset Sarah. "Did something happen with Ella?"  
The tears Sarah had been holding back started pouring out and she buried her face in her hands. Imogen angrily grabbed Amy's arm and drug her out of Sarah's earshot. "Amy, I know you were trying to help but just let me handle this." Imogen said in a low voice with her face only inches from Amy's.  
Amy pulled her arm out of Imogen's grip and pulled away from her. "Fine," she said, annoyed that Imogen wouldn't just let her help. "At least tell me what happened then so I don't make the mistake of asking again."  
"Sarah saw Ella with another girl," Imogen told her. "At first Sarah thought nothing of it but then she noticed that they were holding hands and standing close to each other. That bothered her but she didn't think it meant anything. She thought maybe the other girl was someone Ella knew. Then she kissed the other girl. Obviously she didn't know Sarah was there. So she found me and told me everything and now she wants to leave."  
"I didn't do all this for her just so I could get fucked over," Sarah shouted. Imogen and Amy looked over at her just in time to see her climbing into a cab.  
"Shit. Amy, find Ella and sort this out and meet us at Sarah's apartment as soon as you can." Imogen said then turned around to go after Sarah. She got to the cab and jumped inside just as the cab started to pull away. Amy sighed and turned to go back inside. Nick was waiting for her at the table with two glasses of red wine.  
"Is everything alright?" he asked when Amy approached.  
"No, I'm sorry. I have to go find my friend," she told them and started looking away. Nick grabbed her by the wrist and spun her back around.  
"You'll never find her down there. It's packed. What's your friend's name?" Nick said.  
"Ella Johnson." Amy told him skeptically. "Why?"  
"I'll tell security and the other bartenders. That way when she shows her ID to leave or buy a drink, they'll just send her to us," Nick told Amy. He pulled his phone from his pocket and quickly typed out a text to someone she assumed was part of security then hit send and put his phone back in his jacket. "Why don't you have a drink with me while we wait? Unless you're in a rush of course." Nick offered.  
"Sure," Amy said. She picked up the glass of wine closest to her and gulped it down.  
"Sit down. I'll get you another." Nick said. Amy took her seat and Nick got up and went back behind the bar. While he was gone, Amy went over to the coat check station and asked for her coat. She hoped that her phone was in her pocket and she'd be able to text Emma and tell her they had to leave. The security guard asked for her ID then walked back to the closet to find her coat.  
"Leaving so soon?" A voice behind her asked. Amy turned around to see Nick holding a new glass of wine for her.  
"No, I'm just getting my coat to see if I brought my phone. Maybe if I text Emma she'll see it and I can find her." Amy told him. The security guard returned with her ID and her coat and handed them to her. She thanked him and walked back over to the table with Nick. She sat down and dug through the pocket of her coat with no luck. She must have left her phone at home after all. Amy sighed and pulled the glass of wine toward her and took a sip.  
"No phone?" Nick asked sympathetically.  
"No. I left the bloody thing at home," Amy said and mentally kicked herself for not listening to Rory.  
"I have mine out in my car if you want to use it." Nick offered.  
"If you don't mind," Amy said sheepishly.  
"Not at all," he replied and gave her a soft smile. "You finish your drink, I'm going to go tell my manager that I have a quick emergency to deal with and then I'll be right back."  
Amy nodded and sipped her wine. She scanned the room hoping Emma would realize that she was the only one downstairs and would come looking for the rest of the group. Amy was starting to grow impatient so she downed the last of the wine in her glass to settle her nerves. Nick returned a bit later with his coat on and offered her a hand. Amy took his hand and let him lead her through the crowd to the door but the more she walked, the more she noticed something was wrong. She starting feeling dizzy and when she looked through the crowd in hopes to spot Emma, she saw doubles of the faces looking back at her. She thought that maybe she had drank too much wine too quickly and when it stood up, the effects all rushed in. But she had only had a couple pints and a single shot before her two glasses of wine. That would be enough to make her tipsy but she felt completely past that.  
"Where are you off to Nick?" A man's voice said as they got to the front door.  
"Just escorting this young lady to find a cab, Gus. She's a had a bit too much," Nick replied. Gus nodded and opened the door for Nick and Amy. When they got outside, he helped her put on her coat then took her hand again and started leading her away from Opal.  
"Where are we going?" Amy asked. Her words slurred together. It was next to impossible to make herself speak.  
"To the car park. It's about a block away," Nick told her and continued to pull her along. He started picking up his speed and Amy was having a hard time keeping up without tripping over her own feet.  
"Nick, slow down." She stammered out. Nick ignored her and kept pulling her. "Nick, I can't walk this fast right now," she told him again. This time, Nick turned around and pushed her up against a wall. The back of her head hit the wall first and made her vision go for a few seconds and her ears started to ring. Before Amy knew what was going on, Nick had his lips over hers. The weight of his body crushed her against the bricks of whatever building he had her against. Amy tried to push him off and get away but everything was disoriented around her. Suddenly she realized what was going on.  
"You put something in my drink," Amy said when he pulled away from her. He smirked and said nothing. He grabbed her arm and started started pulling her along much more aggressive than he had before. A cab pulled up next to them and asked if they needed a ride. Nick quickly agreed then opened the door and forced Amy inside. He gave the cabbie an address and Amy tried desperately to call for help but she couldn't make any sounds come out. Everything in the cab started swirling around her and started to feel sick. As they started to drive away, Nick scooted closer to Amy and put his arm around her and brought her close to him.  
"Put on a good show for the cabbie and things will be much better for you, Amy," he whispered harshly in to her ear. Amy felt tears start to roll down her face. This wasn't supposed to happen to her. She had moved to London to start over and have a better life. She was going to wait for the Doctor to come back. She was going to get married to Rory some day and start a family. She wasn't supposed to die before she was even twenty.  
As the cab drove through London, Amy tried to think of some kind of getaway plan. If she tried to scream and draw attention to herself, there was no telling what Nick would to do her. She wouldn't be able to fight her way out of the cab in her state. Her only chance was to make a run for it. After the cab drove for what seemed like an eternity to Amy, came to a halt at a stoplight. Amy slid her hand up to the handle of the door and looked over at Nick who was busy looking at something on his phone. Gripping the handle tightly, she waited for the light to change then pushed hard on the door and fell out in to the street. She crawled over to a car parked on the side of the road and pulled herself up and looked around to try and get her bearings. She looked for the cab she and Nick were in, expecting it to come to a halt and for Nick to be chasing after her but it had kept driving and she could see Nick hanging out the back window, presumably looking for her. Amy looked up at the street signs and hoped that she was somewhere familiar. Lucky for her, her crash landing took place on Northumberland Street and Angelo's was only a block away.  
Amy stumbled down the street as fast as she could. She could feel the effects of whatever Nick had drugged her with becoming stronger. It wouldn't be long before they would cause her to black out or knock her completely unconscious. Somehow she managed to make it to Angelo's front door before her legs gave out on her. She collapsed against the door and tried desperately to call for Angelo. She knew that he was usually there late but she had no idea if it was late enough that he had finally gone home. She slammed her hand against the front door one more time and mustered every bit of energy she had to call for Angelo before slipping in to darkness completely.

A sharp pain in her arm brought Amy back in to a hazy consciousness for a few seconds. She tried to opened her eyes but couldn't muster up the energy to. She could hear people talking all around her but she couldn't make out who the voices were.  
"Shit!" One voice said. Amy forced her eyes open and tried to get them to focus on who was speaking.  
"Amy, can you hear me?" Another voice said. She knew that voice. It was soft and warm. She knew she had only heard it a few times before but it was still so familiar and comforting.  
"Doctor, is that you?" Amy forced out. Her eyes flickered from blurry form to blurry form trying to figure out who it was above her, hoping it was a ridiculous man wearing a bow-tie. The form came in to focus for a moment and after her slowed brain processed the dark curls and ice blue eyes, she realized it couldn't have been anyone else. "Sherlock?" she whispered and tried to hold off the blackness that wanted to engulf her. But she was no match for it and again she slipped back in to unconsciousness.  
She weaved in and out of the darkness fog of her mind and the real world but it all blurred together. She could hear people talking but couldn't process what the words are or even be sure she wasn't just dreaming. She wasn't sure if she was in her flat or a hospital nor did she know who the voices she was hearing belonged to. Eventually she became too tired to keep guessing and let her mind stop.

Hours later, light flooded through Amy's eyelids and her senses began to start up again. She obviously wasn't dead and that in itself was something to celebrate. She didn't feel any excruciating pain so she didn't think she was badly injured but her head was pounding. She opened her eyes slowly to let them adjust to the light and looked down at herself. She was wearing a pair of navy blue pajama pants, a light blue t-shirt that was a bit too big on her and a silk dressing gown. One of her arms was bruised and the other had a plaster in the crease of her elbow. She pushed herself up and rested against the headboard of the unfamiliar bed she was in and looked around the unfamiliar room. Obviously she wasn't in a hospital and she was immensely thankful for that. But if she wasn't in a hospital room or her own flat, where was she?  
Amy looked around the room for some indication of whose room she was in. The walls were a soft green in some places and covered in cream victorian looking wallpaper in other. There was a periodic table framed and hanging on the wall next to the door. The wall across from the bed had a bookshelf practically bursting at the seems pressed against it. On the wall adjacent to that there was another bookshelf, this one overflowed and had stacks of books around on of the floor. And next to that bookshelf was a figure sleeping in a chair. His head was resting against the wall and there was a book open and flipped upside down on his knee to hold the place. She squinted and looked closer at the sleeping person and could barely contain her smile when she realized who it was. In a chair the corner of the room with a medical journal still open in his lap, Sherlock Holmes was sleeping peacefully.


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock sat at his desk, typing away as fast as he could on his laptop. He had just finished an experiment that could help him to identify what instrument a musician played by the callouses on his or her fingertips and hands after solving a case about a cellist that strangled his girlfriend and framed it as a fake robbery. As he tried to post the information to his website, his hands were having trouble skimming across the keys as fast as his mind was spilling out information. He was like an overflowing fountain; no matter how much was forced out, there was always more filling it back up and spilling out again. Suddenly his phone rang, breaking his concentration and causing him to lose his place. When the phone rang again, he turned in the general direction of where he thought he left at it and yelled, "shut up!" at it. Sherlock's yelling woke John from his first chance to sleep in days. John huffed and threw his dressing gown on and walked out to the living room to see what the commotion was for.

"Sherlock, who are you talking to?" He asked as he yawned. "It's nearly three in the morning."  
"No one. The phone was distracting me so I told it off," Sherlock replied trying to focus back on typing up his findings. The phone rang again and he glared at it. "Get that, will you?" he asked John and turned back to his computer. John rolled his eyes and walked to the kitchen table where Sherlock's phone was sitting.  
"It's Angelo," John said. He was a bit puzzled that Angelo was calling Sherlock's phone in the middle of the night. The only reason John could think would be behind the call was a break in. He picked up the phone and quickly took it over to Sherlock.  
"I told you to answer it," Sherlock said. He was getting more and more annoyed with each interruption.

"Just answer it. He's called you in the middle of the night so it must be important," John told him and hit the answer button so Sherlock couldn't protest. Sherlock shot him a glare and took the phone from his hand and held it up to his ear in one swift movement.  
"What do you want, Angelo?" Sherlock asked harshly.  
"Sherlock, I need you to come down to the restaurant. Something's happened." Angelo said quickly. Sherlock could hear him breathing heavily and his voice shook when he spoke. Due to Angelo's size and criminal history, Sherlock doubted it was a break in. Not many criminals were stupid enough to try something on Angelo knowing what he was capable of. And Angelo wasn't type to get worked up over nothing. Maybe Angelo actually had something interesting for him to solve.  
"I know it's not a break in, so what is it?" Sherlock said. Angelo started to explain that Amy was there but Sherlock cut him off in mid-sentence. "Why would I care if Amy is there?" He asked and looked over at John accusingly. John threw his hands up and gave Sherlock a confused look.  
"I think someone's hurt her. I found her passed out at the front door of the restaurant. There's a pretty nasty gash in the back of her head," Angelo said.  
"We're on our way," Sherlock told him and hung up the phone. He turned to John and told him to get dressed then went to find his shoes and throw on his coat.  
"Has something happened to Amy?" John asked.  
"I'll explain on the way. Now go put some trousers on." Sherlock told him. John nodded and hurried back to his room. He picked the jumper and pair of jeans he'd worn earlier and threw them on then hastily grabbed his shoes and slid them on and tied them as he went down the hall. He bounced on one leg while lifting his other to tie the shoe on that foot then alternated. Sherlock was waiting for him in the living room and threw John his coat when he entered the room.

"We're going on foot, I assume," John said as he slid his jacket on. Sherlock nodded and took off running with John trailing behind him. The flew through the door to their flat, down the stairs and out the front door. The streets were eerily empty compared to the traffic that usually consumed them and something about the barrenness made John feel uneasy. He and Sherlock ran full speed across the handful of blocks separating Baker Street and Angelo's and made the trip in under three minutes. As they crossed the street over to the entrance of the restaurant, Sherlock came to a sudden halt and stuck his arm out to keep John from walking any farther.  
"We'll have to go in through the back door," Sherlock told him. John looked at the pavement near the entrance of the restaurant. There was a decent sized blood stain right in front of the door. His stomach was in knots. Sherlock slowly walked up to the blood stain and looked at it closely for a few seconds."That's where Angelo found her." Sherlock said..  
John swallowed hard and quietly asked, "Sherlock, she isn't dead is she?"  
"No. Angelo found her passed out here and has her inside now. He thinks she may have been attacked," Sherlock told him then pushed him down a narrow alley along the side of the building then around to the back door. They walked through the kitchen and out in to the dining room where Angelo was with Amy. She was laying on the bench by the window where John and Sherlock ate dinner the night they met her. Angelo pushed the table out of the way and was kneeling beside her holding a towel to the back of her head.  
"John, I need you to examine her while I ask Angelo some questions," Sherlock said. John nodded and knelt beside Amy. His hands replaced Angelo's on the towel and Angelo followed Sherlock a few feet away to give John some space.  
"Tell me everything that happened from when you heard her to when we got here," Sherlock told him.  
"Well, I was cleaning up in the kitchen and all the sudden I heard a banging noise in the dining room so I went to go check it out thinking someone was knocking on the door because forgot something. That happens a lot on the busy days. But when I got out there I heard someone screaming, a woman, so I ran to the door and there was Amy. She was out cold by the time I carried her in here. Then I noticed the back of her head was covered in blood so I grabbed a rag and tried to clean her up," Angelo told him.  
"Did you see anyone else when you went outside?" Sherlock asked.  
"Not a soul," Angelo replied. "I don't even know how she got here or where she came from."  
Sherlock had about four ideas of what happened after getting the call. The most probable of them being that Amy had been working, stayed late to help clean up and was attacked when she left. Angelo's was at its busiest on Saturdays but Amy hadn't been there? She was one of the main attractions at the restaurant. Sherlock was surprised she wasn't on the menu.  
"Was she supposed to come in to work?" Sherlock inquired.  
"No, she took the night off with a couple other gals. They wanted to show her around London since she's still fairly new to the city," Angelo told him.  
"I'm going to need the names of everyone she went out with." Sherlock told him. "Is there anything else you can think of?"

"Not really. But if you've got more questions I'll try to answer them," He replied. Sherlock nodded and went back to where John and Amy were.  
"What can you tell so far?" Sherlock asked him.  
"I can smell a bit of alcohol on her but I don't think it'd be enough to make her bash in her own head in or pass out on a doorstep. She's lost some blood from the laceration on the back of her head and it's probably going to need stitches. Her pulse is low and her skin is clammy. My best guess is she was drugged and abducted from where ever she was and somehow managed to escape and find her way here before passing out." John said.  
Sherlock stepped between John and Amy and took over the investigation. He felt inside her jacket for keys, cigarettes, anything that could tell him what she had been doing that night. In her pocket were a couple receipts, a crumpled napkin and a coat ticket from a club. Her name and the date was hand written on one side and Opal was printed on to the back. He gave the tag to John then slid her jacket off to inspect her arms. There were small oval bruises around her right elbow and wrist, the back of her shoulders were also bruised, but she had no defensive wounds anywhere on her arms. He slid his hands across her ribs and didn't feel any that were broken or out of place. He reached in to his pocket and pulled out his magnifying glass and looked at the scrapes on her knees. The cuts were jagged and there were bits of gravel inside. Sherlock stepped back and arranged the puzzle pieces of information in to a clear picture of what had happened to Amy.  
"What do you think?" John asked.

"She had a coat tag from Opal night club in her pocket with the name and yesterday's date written on it, so that's where she went with her friends. She probably met her attacker there. She trusted him enough to accept a drink from him so it might be someone she knows. Maybe one of her suitors from the restaurant? He put something in her drink that caused her to become disoriented. He lead her out by her wrist. I doubt anyone thought much of it. She probably looked like she had too much to drink and someone was escorting her out. He held on to her tightly because there are fingertip-shaped bruises.  
"When they got away from the club, she shoved her against a wall causing the injury to her head and the bruises on her shoulder. If she had just fallen, all the force would have gone to the back of her head, the bruises suggest additional force. She has no defensive wounds so she managed to get away without a fight but fell in the process, causing the scrapes on her knees." Sherlock said. He spoke so quickly that he expelled all the information in one breath. After John's mind processed what Sherlock had said, he processed the way he had said it. Sherlock seemed angry. His voice was lower than normal and John thought he saw Sherlock flinch when he mentioned Amy's attacker shoving her in to a wall. The thought of some strange man trying to force himself on any girl was enough to make John angry, but Sherlock was different. Sherlock didn't worry about other people. John had never seen him walk away from a crime scene with a heavy heart but he had a feeling this would be different.

"Call Lestrade and get him someone over here to check everything out and clean up. We've got to get her to Bart's. I need to figure out what's in her system and she's going to need medical attention obviously," Sherlock said to John. "You're going to have to stay behind and explain what's happened."  
"Sure," John said hastily. "Of course. You go with Amy. I can take care of things here."

Sherlock nodded and started to pick up the scraps from Amy's pocket. He looked through them again just to make absolutely sure he hadn't missed anything before throwing them in to the bin. The receipts were from a few days before and didn't tell him anything except for what she had for lunch and that she bought a new dress, presumably the one she was wearing, for her night out. He reached for the napkin and unfolded it to see if there was anything written on it that could help him. Maybe if he was lucky her attacker was stupid enough to write his name down. But what was written on the napkin surprised him completely. There was something written on it but the handwriting was his. She had kept the napkin he wrote "thank you" on the night he met her.  
John looked up from his phone to ask Sherlock a question and saw him staring at whatever was in his hands. John took a step closer to see what it was but Sherlock stuffed what he was holding in to his coat pocket. "What was that?" John asked suspiciously.  
"Nothing. Just something from Amy's jacket. It may be useful," Sherlock said and dismissed him. "Go call Lestrade. I've got to figure out a way to get Amy to the hospital." He said and pulled out his phone.  
"Shouldn't we get an ambulance to take her?" John asked  
"No time for an ambulance." Sherlock replied as if he was annoyed that John had even considered it.  
"I'll give you a lift to the hospital." Angelo offered. "A cab sure isn't going to take you if you're carrying Amy. You wouldn't even be let on the tube." Sherlock thanked him and turned back to Amy. He looked at her, really looked at her, as a person he knew instead of just someone at a crime scene. He could feel anger burning deep inside him somewhere but he wasn't sure if he was more angry with Amy for putting herself in a situation where she would get hurt or the man who had done this to her. And he was angry with himself for even caring.  
While Angelo pulled his car around to the front of the restaurant, John helped Sherlock scoop Amy up. Sherlock cradled her against him with her head resting on his shoulder. John held her head up and pressed a fresh towel to the back of it. Angelo honked and the two men carefully carried Amy out his car. As John was opening the door for Sherlock, Amy stirred for a moment and whispered something.  
"Did she just wake up?" John asked anxiously.

"Not completely. She just said something." Sherlock said looking down at Amy. Knowing John would ask what it is she said, he looked back to John and said, "She said '_Doctor_'."

oOo

Lestrade and his men met John at the restaurant shortly after Sherlock and Angelo had taken off with Amy. John explained what had happened and why Sherlock had taken Amy to the hospital before the police arrived. Lestrade rolled his eyes and thanked John for staying behind to help. He relayed what had happened to his men and got them moving. John sat down at one of the tables and checked his phone for any updates from Sherlock.  
"So, Sherlock's got a girlfriend now," an annoyingly familiar voice said. John looked up at Donovan hovering above him with her hands on her hips. "First he gets a flatmate and now a girlfriend? What is the world coming to?"

"She's not his girlfriend. She's just a friend," John told her.  
"And look what being Freak's friend has gotten her in to," Donovan said impudently. John rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his phone.

Over at Bart's, Sherlock was in the lab testing Amy's blood while Angelo was in her room with her. Angelo acted as a messenger for the doctors and Sherlock. He kept Sherlock updated on Amy's condition and passed along Sherlock's demands to the doctors. It had been a while since he had heard from Angelo. The last text he had recieved had been the doctor's more detailed examination of Amy's injuries. They stitched up the gash in the back of her head then took x-rays. Her right wrist had been dislocated but she had no broken bones and all the bruises and cuts were superficial. While the tests finished processing, Sherlock checked his phone to make sure he hadn't missed anything but all that was waiting for him was a text from John that simply read, "_you okay?"_  
Sherlock scoffed at the text. Of course he was alright. Why would he be upset over any of this? It was just another day at work and another case to solve. He had seen much worse than a girl with some scrapes and bruises. What would be the point of getting emotional over this girl that he had met twice? But as much as his mind fought against him caring about her, he still did. It bothered him seeing someone so resilient broken and bloody. The lack of defense wounds on her body bothered him the most. Why hadn't Amy fought back? Sherlock knew Amy wasn't the kind of woman to go down without a struggle. So what kept her from fighting?

The computer beeped to alert Sherlock that the blood tests were complete. He put his phone away and turned his attention back to the computer. The tests had identified the drug in Amy's system as benzodiazepine. Sherlock sifted through different medications that contained benzodiazepine that were fairly easy for just anyone to get their hands on that appeared in the club scene. "Of course," Sherlock said, almost chuckling at how obvious it was. "Xanax."

He grabbed his coat and scarf off the back of the chair next to him and headed up to Amy's hospital room. When he reached Amy's room, he was greeted by a handful of police officers. "What are you lot doing here? Don't you have a crime scene to process?" Sherlock asked snidely.  
"Lestrade sent us. We needed her clothes," a young officer said nervously and titled his head toward Amy who was now in a hospital gown.  
Sherlock glared at him for a moment then said, "As usual you can't see what is really important. Her clothes won't be much help. What would be useful is her being able to wake up and not be sent straight in to shock because she has no idea where she is, what she's wearing or what has happened to her in the last few hours."  
"I'm sorry, sir. They were Lestrade's orders," the officer stammered out.  
"Just get what you came for and get out so I can actually make some progress," Sherlock snapped. The officer nodded and hurried away from him. It took a few more outbursts from Sherlock but eventually Amy's hospital room cleared until it was just them and Angelo who was half asleep in one of the chairs. After a row with one of the doctors, Sherlock managed to get Amy released and wake up Angelo. While he waited for Amy's paperwork to be finished, he called John and updated him on the situation.  
"Why did you get her released?" John asked.  
"Because we need answers from her and to get answers she has to wake up and waking up in a hospital, not in her own clothes, having no idea how she got there and not knowing anyone is just going to send her in to shock. Do I have to explain this to everyone?" Sherlock groaned.  
"So where are we going to take her? We don't know where she lives!" John said still confused by Sherlock's plan.  
"We'll take her back to the flat, give her some spare clothes and let her sleep in my room," Sherlock said as if it was completely obvious. "We'll stay with her to make sure she doesn't choke on her own vomit and then when she wakes up, we question her, then call her boyfriend because I'm sure he's wondering where she's gone off to."

"Right," John sighed. He could see a few loopholes in Sherlock's plan but it was better to just agree and deal with it as they go along than to reform it all now. "I'll meet you back at the flat, then," he said then hung up. Sherlock tucked his phone back in his pocket and walked over to Amy's bed. On the other side of Amy, a nurse was quietly pulling the IV out of her arm. The nurse's hand slipped and the needle jabbed back in to Amy's arm. Suddenly Amy's eyes fluttered open and she groaned.

"Amy, can you hear me?" Sherlock said, his hands flying up to the her cheeks.  
"Doctor, is that you?"Amy said in a whisper. Her eyes flickered over to Sherlock and she fought to keep them open. "Sherlock?" she mumbled before she closed her eyes again. Sherlock stiffened up and dropped his hands. He reminded himself that caring wouldn't help save Amy, that emotions would only get in the way and that lust was the wrong kind of distraction.  
When Angelo returned, Sherlock wasted no time getting Amy in the wheelchair so they could leave. Sherlock lead their way through the hospital, pushing past people as fast as he could. Angelo left him with Amy while he went to the car park to fetch the car. Sherlock pulled out a cigarette from the pack he kept hidden in the inside pocket of his coat and lit up. The nicotine rushed through him and called his shaky nerves. In front of him, the sun had began to rise, turning everything around them orange. Even in the warm glow, the cold air still nipped at his skin. He looked over to Amy wearing not much more than the hospital gown and saw her shiver. Without hesitation, Sherlock held his cigarette between his lips, slipped out of his jacket and wrapped it around Amy.

oOo

John was waiting for Sherlock when he finally arrived back at the flat. John held the door open as Sherlock carefully carried Amy up the stairs in to the flat then back to his room, placing her carefully on the bed. He removed his coat from her and hung it on the back of the door.  
"John, I need you to do me a favor," Sherlock said as he turned back to him.  
"What do you need?" John asked tentatively.  
"Since you're a doctor I think it would be more, um, appropriate for you to be the one who changed Amy in to some of my spare clothes," Sherlock said somewhat awkwardly. John nodded and Sherlock retrieved a plain cotton t-shirt and a pair of striped pajama bottoms from one of his dresser drawers and handed them to him. He waited for Sherlock to leave the room before carefully pulling Amy's hospital gown off, not knowing exactly where and how she was injured. Meanwhile, Sherlock paced restlessly outside the door of his room. Amy being out of his sight made him uncomfortable. For some reason he couldn't understand himself, he had started to grow protective over. He reminded himself that she would be safe with John and that worrying, or caring, wasn't going to help Amy in any way.  
"Sherlock?" John called.  
Sherlock stopped dead in his tracks and pressed his ear against the door. "Is there something wrong?" He asked trying not to sound worried.  
"Amy woke up. She said your name," John told him. Sherlock heard him say something else, he assumed to Amy, in a softer voice but he couldn't make out what he was saying.  
"Am I supposed to come in?" Sherlock inquired.  
"Yes, she's dressed." John replied. Sherlock took a deep breath and opened the door. Amy was sitting up and leaning in to John to keep herself upright. Sherlock sat on the other side of her and John tilted her so her weight rested on him then left the room without saying a word.  
"Sherlock?" Amy said, her words still slurring together. "What happened to me?"  
"You were attacked. But it's alright now." Sherlock said, his tone contrastingly warm compared to his normally cold demeanor. "Can you remember anything from earlier?"  
Amy's scrunched her face and squeezed her eyes shut as if it would help her think. After a few seconds she shook her head and started to lean more on Sherlock. "My head hurts," she said sleepily. Sherlock realized she was still too strung out to tell him what happened and that best thing she could do was sleep it off. So he gently guided her in to a laying position and started to pull the sheets over her.  
"I'm cold, Sherlock," she whispered, almost inaudibly. Sherlock pulled his blue dressing gown from the corner of head headboard and slid it on to her and tied it up.  
"Get some rest, Amy," Sherlock murmured and tucked her in to the blankets.  
"You're not going to leave, are you?" She asked. "Because when Doctor left, he didn't come back." Sherlock could hear her voice shaking and tried to calm her as best as he could.  
"I suppose I could stay if you'd like," he said gauchely. Amy simply nodded and wormed her way deeper in to the sheets. Sherlock reached out and delicately tucked a stray piece of Amy's hair behind her ear and whispered goodnight. He stood up and walked as quietly as he could over to his bookshelf in the corner of the room and picked something out to keep him entertained while he waited for Amy to wake up. He decided on a medical journal he hadn't read in a few years then sat in the chair next to the bookshelf and cracked the book open. After five or six chapters Sherlock felt his eyelids getting heavy so he leaned his head back and rested it against the wall and closed his eyes. He had been awake for twenty-nine solid hours and he knew that if he wanted to be able to function later, he needed a quick bit of sleep. All too soon, the sound of creaking floorboards and the smell of strong coffee roused him out of his coma like sleep. Sherlock opened his eyes and to see a chipper Amy Pond. She was kneeling in front of him with one hand on his knee and the other held a cup of coffee out to him. He took the coffee from her and sipped it. Black with two sugars, just the way he liked it.  
"Good morning, Ms. Pond," he said, his voice still deep and drowsy.  
"Good morning to you, Mr. Holmes," she replied brightly.


	5. Chapter 5

"John told me how you liked your coffee. I figured making you a cup was the least I could do," Amy said to Sherlock who sipped happily. "Sorry for waking you up," She smiled up at him and took a drink of her coffee.  
"It's fine. I've learned to function on as little sleep as possible," Sherlock said. Amy tried to stand up and pain shot through her body. Realizing getting up without help wasn't an option she sat down cross-legged at Sherlock's feet, careful to not spill the hot contents of her mug down the front of whoever's clothes she was wearing. Sherlock gave her a perplexed look and continued to drink his coffee. Amy sat awkwardly for a few minutes trying to figure out what to say to him. _What exactly do you say to someone you've only met twice but they've saved your life and now you're in their flat and possibly in their clothes?_Amy thought to herself. Thankfully Sherlock filled the silence for her.  
"How are you feeling?" Sherlock asked somewhat shyly. It was almost as if he had never woken up in the same room as a woman before. Amy couldn't believe that was even a possibility for him. He could be a bit abrasive, and he was quite possibly a sociopath, but Sherlock Holmes was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. How could any woman resist him? And Sherlock was only a man, after all.  
Amy shrugged, "Alright, I guess. My head and wrist are killing me. But I'll take this over brutally murdered any day of the week." She finished her coffee and set the empty mug on the floor. She used her hands to turn herself around so her back was facing Sherlock then she leaned against his legs. "So are you going to explain to me how I wound up at your flat and more importantly in your bed?" Amy said playfully. She couldn't see the look Sherlock was giving her but she assumed he was giving her one anyway. She wondered when he would realize she found  
"Angelo called me. He found you on his doorstep," Sherlock said blankly. Amy started to say something but was cut off by Sherlock's phone ringing. He let out and annoyed huff then reached in to his jacket after it. He briefly looked at the screen of his phone then answered it with an annoyed hello. Amy picked at her chipping nail polish as she listened to the one-sided conversation. After a few minutes she started to get bored and laid her head back on Sherlock's knees.  
"She's fine, Lestrade. We have her at the flat," Sherlock said, contesting whatever Lestrade had been saying about Amy. "It's not as if I've taken her from all medical care. John is here too. And she kept complaining about the doctor leaving her while she was at the hospital anyway," Sherlock added on. Amy's eyes widened and she became hyperaware of her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. She tried to recall anything she might have said while she was out but she couldn't tell if her memories were actually memories that were badly recorded by her drug-ridden mind or hazy dreams. Behind her, Sherlock hung up the phone and grumbled incoherently.  
"What did you mean I was complaining about the doctor?" Amy asked, hoping her anxiousness passed as her just being confused. She looked up at him as he was putting his phone back in his pocket, seemingly ignoring her question.  
"When we brought you back to the flat you woke up for a few minutes and you asked me to stay with you because the doctor kept leaving you," Sherlock answered when his gaze met hers. "I doubt you remember it," he added.

"You're right, I don't," Amy replied, internally suppressing her mortification and relief that Sherlock had assumed she was talking about one of the hospital doctors, not the madman with the blue box.  
"You're embarrassed by it though," Sherlock pointed out.  
"Why would I be embarrassed?" Amy said quickly, trying to cover herself. "I don't even remember it."  
"Your heart rate has sped up, your cheeks are flushed, you're picking at your nails. The real question is what are you embarrassed of?" He asked smoothly. His eyes searched hers for some kind of clue to prove a deduction she knew he was forming in his head. Amy smirked and lifted her head from his knees. She tried to push herself up again but her arms were too sore and weak to support her weight. Noticing her struggle, Sherlock carefully stood up behind her and extended his hands out to her. They locked wrists and Sherlock pulled her up. Her legs shook a bit and Sherlock held on to her waist to steady her. Amy held on to his arms and tried to regain control of her legs.  
"I don't remember my legs being this wobbly earlier," Amy said with a little laugh. "But then again, you were still asleep," she added.  
"Lestrade will be here soon to question you. You can have a shower if you'd like," Sherlock said, his blank expression never faltering. But Amy knew better than to trust his expressions to tell her anything. His grip hand tightened slightly on her waist, his eyes were bright with curiosity. She could feel her knees getting weak again. Men could throw themselves at her and she barely noticed but all Sherlock Holmes had to do was look at her and captured her attention. Amy slid her hands up Sherlock's arms to his shoulder and stood on her toes to gently kiss his cheek, dangerously close to the corner of his mouth.  
"Thank you," she said softly, her lips hovering above where she kissed him. She pulled away and started to lower herself back on to flat feet but Sherlock's grip held her in place. Amy ran her hands from his shoulders to the sides of his neck and leaned in closer. The distance between their lips was barely there and the Amy felt like the butterflies in her stomach would burst out at any moment. But before either she or Sherlock could eradicate the space between them, John called their names from the living room.  
"Amy, have you got him up yet?" John asked. Sherlock and Amy heard his footsteps coming down the hall after them. Sherlock released his hold on Amy and she reluctantly did the same. John knocked on the door and entered just as Sherlock put a generous gap between him and Amy again.  
"It took a little bit of force but I got him up," Amy said cheerily, as if her mind wasn't reeling over what had almost occurred.  
"Good," John said, eyeing her and Sherlock. "Are you still in pain?" he asked her.  
"A little. I'm mostly just stiff and sore. Nothing a hot bath won't fix," she assured him. "Sherlock was just escorting me to the bathroom, actually," she said and nudged him.  
"Yes. I figured it would be best to get her cleaned up before Lestrade showed up," Sherlock added.  
"Why is Lestrade coming here?" John asked.  
"To question Amy about last night. Well, technically this morning." Sherlock replied. He reached out to Amy who had braced herself against the side of his bed. He put her arm around his neck and looked up at John. "A little help?" Sherlock said to him. John rushed to Amy's other side and guided her arm over his neck and the two men helped walk her to the end of the hall where the bathroom was.  
Amy sat on the edge of the tub next Sherlock while he ran the water and John got towels. She glided her hand through the warm water as it filled the tub up then pulled it out and flicked her fingers off her thumb, sending tiny water droplets at Sherlock. Unamused, Sherlock looked over at her and glowered. Amy chuckled then went back to running her hand through the water. John returned with two towels that he placed on the sink then stood hesitantly.  
"Do you need anything else? Some tea or something?" He asked.  
"Some tea would be nice, thank you." Amy replied.  
John nodded and looked at Sherlock. "What about you, Sherlock?" he inquired.  
"Of course," Sherlock said quickly.  
"Right, okay. I'll go put the kettle on." John said and stepped out.  
"Alone again," Amy said. Sherlock turned the water off and looked over at her in a way she had never seen from him. She tried to anticipate what he would do next but he was doing an excellent job of making sure she couldn't read him. She pulled her hand out of the water and wiped it dry on her pajama bottoms then reached over and put her hand on top of his. Sherlock flinched at her touch and Amy expect him to pull away. To her surprise, he flipped his hand over and laced his fingers halfway though hers. For the first time, Amy was unsure of what to do when it came to Sherlock. When she met him, she thought he would just be something fun to chase; a temporary adventure until another one came along. She wanted to learn what buttons to push to make him mad or curious or happy even if he didn't let it show. But when he replied to her small gesture with one of his own, that changed everything. She was a dog chasing a car that she never expected to catch up to, only keep up with. But when she realized she might have caught her car, it dawned on her that she wasn't sure what to do with it. She barely knew him or anything about him but now her heart was set on him. So she sat with him at the edge of the bathtub, their hands half intertwined, and silent until John tapped on the door.  
"Sherlock, Lestrade is here," he said tentatively.  
"I'll be right there," Sherlock replied. He waited for John's footsteps to fade away before he turned to Amy. "I trust you'll be alright by yourself," he said softly. The smoothness in his voice sent chills down Amy's spine.

"Of course I'll be fine," she replied, crinkling her nose as she smiled. "I'm always fine."  
With that, Sherlock unlaced their fingers then stood up and left without saying another word. For the first time in several hours, Amy was completely alone. She carefully pushed herself up and shimmied out of her clothes. After hanging them on the back of the door, she sunk in to the warm bath water until it was under her chin and closed her eyes. She concentrated on she sound of her own breathing and the sound the water made as it settled and shifted when she moved. In those moments, everything was calm. Even her sleep earlier that morning wasn't as peaceful. Just as she started to nod off, voices outside the door startled her. She lifted herself up and strained to hear what was being said but most of it was too muffled for her to make out. Then Sherlock's voice resonated through.  
"I think I know what I'm doing, John," Sherlock growled.  
"Sherlock! Lower your voice," an unfamiliar woman's voice said quickly.  
"We're just asking you to be careful, is all," another voice added. It sounded like John but she couldn't be sure. She heard someone say her name followed by Rory's and her heart jumped up in to her throat. Before she could hear anymore, she submerged herself until water haloed around her face. The wound on the back of her head stung and tears of frustration welled up. Amy took a deep breath and sunk farther in the water so nothing but her knees were above it and tried to focus on the dull throbbing of her head to block everything else out. In all the commotion she had forgotten about Rory. Sweet, lovely Rory who would have came home exhausted from working all night, expecting to come home and see Amy asleep on the couch where she fell asleep waiting up for him. Instead he would come home to an empty house. She wondered if he knew where she was and what happened, or if he was scouring the city trying to find her. And she didn't know which would be worse.  
Then it hit her all at one; five people in five different parts of the city were wondering where she was. Or they knew someone had drugged and attacked her and now she was what could loosely be called police custody and were worried about her. Then the weight of what happened came crashing next. She had been attacked and narrowly escaped by jumping out of a moving cab and dragging herself to the doorstep of the only person she knew in a ten mile radius and passing out there, hoping someone would find her. For the second time in less than a year, she woke up feeling lucky to be alive. She had survived two situations where she shouldn't have had any hope to make it out. She wasn't sure which side of lucky that put her on.

Suddenly a hand reached through the water, grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the water. Amy opened her mouth to yell in shock but water rushed in and suffocated the sound. When she surfaced, she sputtered and wiped her eyes and came face to face with a frantic John.  
"Holy shit, John!" Amy yelled and quickly tried to cover herself with her hands and arms. Behind John stood Sherlock, a older woman Amy didn't know and a man with salt and pepper colored hair and a badge that she assumed was Lestrade. "What the hell is going on?" she said angrily.  
"We thought you were-" John started to say but was quickly interrupted.  
"John thought you had passed out and drowned," Sherlock said from the doorway, glaring at the back of John's head.

John rolled his eyes and continued, "I came to tell you the tea was ready and when you didn't answer, I came to check on you and you were under the water."  
"I was just enjoying my first moment of privacy for the first time since I left my flat yesterday," Amy explained. "Why are there three other people in here?"

"We heard yelling that something happened. We're so sorry, dear," the woman said empathetically. Sherlock turned and walked down the hall, grumbling to himself as he went.  
"I'm alright. Completely mortified that four people have seen me in the bath but other than that I'm happy as a clam," Amy assured them.  
"Right," Lestrade said after clearing his throat. "We'll just let you get dressed then" He ushered John and the women out and closed the door behind him. Amy let out a long exhale before stepping out of the bathtub and wrapping a thick towel around her body. She used the second towel to dry her hair then drained the water from the tub.  
A few minutes after her bathroom ordeal she padded in to the living room in the t-shirt and pajama bottoms with the dressing gown wrapped tightly around her. The three men sat at the table in the middle of the room while Mrs. Hudson cheerily delivered cups of tea and plates of food. Amy sat down in the empty chair between Sherlock and Lestrade quietly and Mrs. Hudson put a cup of tea down in front of her. When the men at the table realized Amy had joined them, they all looked up at her from their respective reading materials. A few awkward moments passed where no one knew what to say so Amy piped up.  
"Well, it's not every day I walk in to a room full of people who have seen me naked," she shrugged and took a sip of tea. She reached over and took the newspaper from Sherlock and skimmed through it. The three men looked away from her and down at their food in embarrassment. On the front page was an article about London's one and only consulting detective rescuing a mysterious damsel in distress in the early hours of the morning. "Look, Sherlock! We made the front page," Amy said with false enthusiasm and squeezed his knee. John choked on his coffee and Lestrade looked back over to her with wide eyes.  
"And you're excited about that?" Sherlock asked her with his eyebrows raised.  
"That was sarcasm, stupid face," Amy sighed and flipped the page of the newspaper. John snorted and Lestrade let out a chuckle at Amy's insult to Sherlock. Sherlock simply glared back at them.  
"So, Amelia," Lestrade started.  
Amy cut him off quickly. "It's just Amy. Amelia is a bit fairytale," she corrected.  
"Okay. Amy, we're going to have to ask you a few questions about what happened to you," Lestrade said and pulled a small pad of paper and a pen out of his jacket pocket.  
"Oh, just let the poor girl have her breakfast and cuppa!" the older woman scolded and swatted Lestrade with a dish towel.  
"Mrs. Hudson, I don't want to keep your boys any longer than I have to," Lestrade told her.  
"You can wait ten bloody minutes!" Mrs. Hudson told him and swatted him again. "Amy, dear, what would you like to eat?"  
"I'll just have some toast," Amy said and smiled at her. Mrs. Hudson nodded and patted her shoulder before returning to the kitchen.  
"You really should eat more than just toast," John told Amy.  
"I think she can handle herself, Dr. Watson," Sherlock said blankly.  
"I forgot you were a doctor, John! _Dr. Watson,_" Amy teased.  
"Settle down, Miss Pond," Sherlock replied.  
Amy looked up from the newspaper and met his gaze. His eyes that were bright with curiosity before were now dark and angry. He was angry with _her_. "So now I'm 'Miss Pond'?" Amy asked indignantly. Sherlock smirked and took a sip of his drink. Mrs. Hudson delivered Amy's toast and went back down to her flat, leaving the other four to eat in silence. Amy nibbled her way through her first piece of toasts as she read the paper, trying to shrug off Sherlock's attitude. But she only got halfway through the second piece before throwing it down on the plate, finishing the rest of her tea, then standing up and brushing the crumbs off her lap. "A word, Mr. Holmes?" She said, then walked down the hall to his room and waited for him to follow. He stormed in behind her and slammed the door.  
"What is this about?" He asked. His voice was low and he used every bit of the two inches of height he had on her to tower above, dominating Amy as best he could. Every inch of their bodies were only a fraction of an inch from each other. They were two pieces of an ambivalent puzzle that were meant to fit together, but both of them were caught up in the rush of the cliffhanger. In Amy's mind, those moments directly before you jumped off the cliff where half the fun. She loved the feeling of wanting something, of having something in her reach but not yet having it in her grasp. And she knew that jumping only had two outcomes: you found a way to save yourself, to stop in mid-air before you hit the ground and fall perpetually, or you enjoyed the fall while you had the chance and prepared yourself for when you inevitably hit the ground. She knew the feeling of the later. When she fell for Rory, she knew it would happen one way or another. She knew they would either get tired of each other or realize that no matter how much they loved each other, they weren't meant for one another. And with the Doctor's return always a possibility, Amy never expected to escape the landing. So she braced herself for it from the start.  
The former was something Amy never considered a realistic possibility. When she was seven, she jumped and landed all in one night; the night she met the Doctor. Nothing had felt better than sitting across from him eating fish fingers and custard and nothing hurt more than watching him go, leaving nothing but a promise behind. But she climbed back up the cliff and waited at the top for him to come back. She assumed that if she was going to expect someone to keep her from hitting the ground, to make her fall forever, would be a mad man with a time machine.

Then there was Sherlock. Before you could jump and fall for Sherlock, you had to get through his maze right at the top. He could prolong the rush of wanting something within your reach so badly. He was a third option that Amy could never have fathomed. No jumping, no falling, no landing, no hurting. If falling forever was truly a fairytale option, this was the next best thing. And in theory there would be no mess to clean up when it was all done. Amy couldn't resist. Standing in front of her was everything she was looking for and everything she wanted, embodied and attainable. The only way to get through a maze is to step in to it. Amy swallowed hard and mustered up all the confidence she had.  
"I have something to say to you," she told him.


	6. Chapter 6

Sherlock sat next to Amy on the edge of the bathtub per her request. She kept insisting that him just standing around was "weird." When he asked her to elaborate she simply replied, "it's just weird, okay? Come sit." So he did. Next to him, she ran her hands through the bath water. When she caught him watching her, she only stopped long enough to flick water at him. He glared at her and she simply smiled in return, obviously amused by his distain. John, who had left to fetch towels for Amy, returned and quietly placed to the towels on the sink. He hesitated at the door as if he forgot something. His body posture told Sherlock that John was worried. The way he looked back and forth from Sherlock to Amy told Sherlock that it was them that was causing John to worry, although he couldn't figure out why.  
"Do you need anything else? Some tea or something?" John asked Amy.  
"Some tea would be nice," Amy replied. "Thank you."  
John nodded then turned to Sherlock and extended the same offer. Sherlock quickly agreed hoping John would understand that he wanted him to vanish for a while. John shuffled out and closed the door behind him.  
"Alone again," Amy noted when John's footsteps faded out completely. Sherlock said nothing. He was too busy trying to understand what had happened before John had interrupted he and Amy in his bedroom and what _would _have happened. He hadn't been that close to anyone with a pulse in years. There had been a few women between his time at uni and his years spent as a junkie but none of them were ever serious. He was with them because he was bored or because he hadn't yet learned to divorce his mind from his body and its urges. Most selfish of all, he wanted to feel adored by someone, even if if was only for a few temporary moments of mustered up lust. Then he got clean and became the world's only consulting detective and romance became low on his list of priorities. Despite what most of the world though, Sherlock knew love was quite simple and therefore boring. He never saw the need to fall in love as long as there were criminals in London. But Amy Pond was different. She wasn't another girl at university.  
As if she could read his mind, she reached out and put her hand on top of his. The jolt back in to the present made him flinch and he saw Amy's face fall at his reaction. Before she could pull her hand away, he turned his over and laced his fingers halfway through hers. The corners of her mouth started to pull in to a smile and she looked away from him. Sherlock could tell she had something on her mind, so he said nothing and let her think.  
Sherlock looked down at their intertwined fingers, trying to decide what to do next. Even in his days of intimacy, he wasn't one for romance. Every action and moment spent with previous women was simply to gain something. Drugs, a temporary escape from boredom or one's own mind, or a moment of being cherished and held close. There were no boyfriends and girlfriends or dates or infatuation. This was one of the few circumstances that Sherlock's intellect would be no help. He could feel himself starting to over think and he knew he had to focus his attention on something else. Sherlock turned his attention back to his and Amy's hands and memorized everything he saw. The way his hand engulfed hers, how her pale skin stretched over her knuckles, the pattern of freckles across the back of her hand. But the study of how her hand looked when it was tangled with his lead him to discover something he didn't want to see, even though it wasn't there.  
Her ring finger had an indent where a ring had been. It had faded a bit so Amy hadn't worn the ring for a while. But seeing as it could take several months and even years for ring marks to fade, he couldn't be sure how long ago she had taken it off. It could have just been a meaningless accessory but since it was on her left hand and that the size and shape of the mark strongly suggested that it was an engagement ring, Sherlock doubted it was anything else. There were no other marks on any of her fingers so she didn't wear any other rings regularly. Since she had been wearing the same gold initial pendant and small stud earrings each time he saw her over the last few months, Sherlock could tell Amy wore her jewelry for sentimental purposes. So she wasn't one to coordinate her jewelry with her outfits. All signs pointed to engagement ring.  
In the commotion of recent events, Sherlock had forgotten that he knew Amy had a boyfriend. Or maybe those same events tricked his mind in to thinking she didn't have one anymore. It had been quite a while since he had seen her last. And she had gone out in an expensive dress she had obviously just bought to wear on her night out to an upscale club with her friends and accepted a drink from a man that she thought wanted to chat her up. Sherlock didn't claim to be an expert on women, but from what he did know her actions appeared to be those of a woman who was unattached. But the mark from the engagement ring told a different story. Amy wasn't unattached at all. She was attached to anyone she found interesting. She had almost convinced Sherlock that she understood what it was like to have a mind that never slowed and a constant need to be entertained or distracted. But she was just another Jennifer Wilson with the only difference being Amy had managed to escape when someone tried to kill her.

For the first time in years, Sherlock remembered what it felt like to be hurt by someone. It was distracting and convoluted and not something he had a desire to deal with. He had followed all the precautions with Amy that he had with everyone else to keep himself from caring. It didn't solve cases or save lives, so what was the point? But twice now he had failed himself. When he met John, he had hoped for a useful partnership with an army doctor. But after knowing each other for a little over twenty-four hours, John had made himself an invaluable friend. But Amy had done nothing to make him care for her but here she was, just woken up from a night she spent in his bed and clothes because he couldn't bear the sight of her in a hospital bed or gown. Even though he was angry with her for using him to distract herself, he was more angry with himself for letting it happen and for _caring_.

A quiet tap on the door broke both Sherlock and Amy out of their deep thinking state. On the other side of it, John shifted awkwardly, unsure if he should go in or not. Deciding against going inside, he hesitantly told Sherlock through the door that Lestrade has just arrived.  
"I'll be right there," Sherlock replied. John senses something was wrong in the tone of his voice but he knew it wouldn't do much good asking him if he was okay. So he turned around and walked back to the living room where Lestrade was chatting with Mrs. Hudson.  
"He'll be out in a minute," John told him.  
"I do hope they hurry. I've got breakfast cooking and I don't want theirs to go cold," Mrs. Hudson pouted.  
"I'll drag them out if I have to, Mrs. Hudson," Lestrade joked. She gave him a small appreciative smile before dashing back to the flat's messy kitchen to tend to the food. A few seconds later, Sherlock sauntered in to the room and threw himself in to his chair and stared off in to the distance without saying a word to anyone.  
"Good morning to you, too," Lestrade said sarcastically earning a grunt in response from the detective.  
"What took you so long?" John asked, trying to not sound too concerned knowing that it would just annoy Sherlock.

"I had a few questions to ask Amy," Sherlock replied inscrutably. His gaze shot over to John and he looked him up and down before staring back at nothing. "You're worried about my interactions with her," he deduced by the way John was standing with his hands tightly laced together to prevent them from fidgeting. Sherlock could tell that John wanted to ask how he knew but simply shook his head in vexation.  
"Yes," he sighed. "It's just-"

"Just _what_?" Sherlock spat out. "Don't want to leave her alone with a sociopath?"

"Boys, don't fight in front of the guest! It's not polite," Mrs. Hudson scolded from the kitchen.

Lestrade chuckled. "Oh, I don't mind. It's nice to see someone give Sherlock a taste of his own medicine," he assured her. Sherlock glared at him for a second before turning his attention back to John.  
"Just what, John?" he pressed.

"She's a nice girl, Sherlock. And she obviously fancies you for some reason. Just don't take advantage of that," John said wearily.  
"Not to mention her boyfriend might not appreciate the attention you're giving Ms. Pond whether she fancies you or not," Lestrade added. Sherlock shook his head and muttered "fiance" under his breath.  
"Hang on, did you just say 'fiance'?" John asked, unsure that he had heard Sherlock correctly.  
"Yes, she's engaged. Obviously," Sherlock replied. Both John and Lestrade stared at him, expecting him to continue. He sighed and rolled his eyes. "There's an indent on her left ring finger made by wearing an engagement ring that's no longer there."

"Where is it then?" Lestrade asked.  
"At her flat. It's started to fade so she doesn't wear it often. Probably takes it off for work. And when she goes out apparently," Sherlock said. _So that's why he's in a bad mood, _John thought as he watched Sherlock's hands clench in to tight fists.

"Or maybe they called off the engagement?" John suggested.

Sherlock cocked his eyebrow and turned to Lestrade. "Detective Inspector, you interviewed the boyfriend, correct?" he said.

"Yes. Rory Williams, twenty-two years old, works part time at Bart's." Lestrade read from his notes. "Ms. Hooper from the morgue helped me track him down,"

"And when was the last time he saw Amy?" Sherlock inquired.  
Lestrade flipped to another page of his notes and replied, "At the flat the two share."  
"How often do you think someone would continue to share their flat with their fiance after becoming estranged, John?" Sherlock asked contemptuously.

"It still could be a possibility," John answered, trying to defend his position.  
"But a very unlikely one," Sherlock refuted.

"That's not the point, Sherlock. The point is despite whatever her situation is, Amy is interested in you. And you are interested in her in one way or another. Whether or not she's engaged is beside the point right now because she was violently attacked last night and you're the only one who can catch the guy who did it and we need you to focus on that," John said, no longer trying to be delicate. Sherlock was never one for subtle hints despite being to solve crimes on the most miniscule pieces of evidence. John wondered how someone so sensationally brilliant could be so dangerously thick.

With every word John said, Sherlock had to force himself to bite his tongue and hold back his anger. As usual, John only saw what he wanted to. Of course Sherlock wasn't angry that Amy was engaged. He was angry that he had so foolishly believed that he had met someone who could be his equal, someone that understood what it was like to have a mind that never halted or slowed, that knew what it was like to be an outcast. Instead he found a young lady who knew how to make someone feel special so she could have their attention. That would be enough to make anyone angry. And John questioning Sherlock's ability to separate himself from things that plagued him while he worked or even most of the human range of emotion was a sore spot.

"I think I know what I'm doing, John," Sherlock growled deafeningly.

"Sherlock, lower your voice!" Mrs. Hudson shouted at him.

"We're just asking you to be careful is all," Lestrade said calmly. In the five years that he had known Sherlock, he had seen his fair share of his temper tantrums and his full on manic behavior. His temper had improved considerably since he had stopped using narcotics to hinder his mind and started helping with cases but Lestrade knew that it could always make a full return. "Whatever is going on with Amy and Rory is unimportant. Getting Amy's attacker off the street is what we all need to focus on," he said to both of the other men.

"If you three are done shouting abuse at each other, your food is done," Mrs. Hudson said, annoyed by all of their yelling.  
"I'll go tell Amy then," John said and made his way back to the bathroom before Sherlock could volunteer or protest. And if he was honest, he could use a few moments away from Sherlock's massive attitude. When he got to the end of the hall, John knocked lightly on the door and called to Amy. When he didn't hear anything in response, he assumed she hadn't heard him and tried again. After not getting a response for a second time, he cracked the door a bit and listened for any kind noise.  
"Amy, it's John. Mrs. Hudson has made breakfast," he said gingerly. Still nothing. John had started to fear the worst. It was possible that her head injury could cause her to pass out and drown in the bath water or have a seizure and asphyxiate. Or she could have just dozed off and was completely fine and John was overreacting but he didn't care to risk it. He opened the door all the way and saw Amy completely submerged and motionless. "Oh my god, Amy!" John yelled and raced to the tub.

In the living room, Sherlock heard John's exclamation and shout of of his chair. He came bursting in to the bathroom just in time to see a very surprised Amy still sitting completely unclothed in the bath, trying to get the water out of her eyes and mouth. He took a deep breath to calm his heart rate and clear the adrenaline from his system.

"Holy shit, John!" Amy exclaimed, scrambling to cover herself as Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade rushed in behind Sherlock. Her confused eyes went from person to person, trying to assess her surroundings and the unfamiliar faces. "What the hell is going on?" she asked, carefully maneuvering her hand so she could push the wet locks of hair that where stuck to her face without revealing herself.

John quickly started explaining himself but Sherlock cut him off in mid sentence. "John thought you passed out and drowned," he told her indifferently as he leaned back against the door frame, glaring at the back of John's head.

"I came to tell you tea was ready and when you didn't answer, I came in to check on you and you were under the water," John said apologetically.

"I was just enjoying my only moment of privacy for the first time since I left my flat yesterday," she explained. Sherlock started to sympathize with her. There would be cases that forced him to constantly be in the company of others and it was maddening. He had no space to breathe or to think properly because there was always other people making noise. He wasn't particularly fond of silence but trying to think in Scotland yard is like trying to have a complicated conversation with someone in a loud pub. Everything gets muddled and skewed, and then you spend precious time trying to figure out when things went awry so you could reorganize everything. But he quickly remembered that she wasn't like that, she never was. It was just an act, he reminded himself. "Why are there three other people in here?" Amy asked John, obviously becoming increasingly more uncomfortable.

"We heard yelling and thought something was wrong," Mrs. Hudson answered, sympathizing with Amy whose annoyed expression started to fade away. _If she charms Mrs. Hudson I'll never hear the end of it, _Sherlock thought to himself and rolled his eyes. She apologized to Amy and started shooing the men out of the bathroom. Sherlock got a head start, unknowingly mumbling under his breath as he made his way to his place at the table. Spotting the newspaper, he quickly picked it up and started reading it to create a barrier between him and the others in the room. He wasn't in the mood to be social and it would give him something to focus on and tune outJohn and Lestrade's small talk as they joined him at the table and Mrs. Hudson bopped around in the kitchen. By the time she had started plating food and handing it out, Amy had gotten dressed and was walking as quietly as she could in to the room. Sherlock heard her mouse-like steps and without thinking looked up at her and watched her cross the room. Following his unintended curiosity, Lestrade and John looked up from the police reports of Amy's case when she sat down in the empty between Sherlock and Lestrade. All three men stared at her silently as Mrs. Hudson placed a cup of tea in front of her.

"Well, it's not every day I walk in to a room full of people that have seen me naked," she said carelessly and took a sip of her tea then snatched the paper out of Sherlock's hands. The three men adverted their gazes elsewhere and waited for the awkwardness to melt away before attempting to make eye contact with Amy again. Sherlock assumed that he would end this day with an inevitable headache brought on by how difficult it was to get even the most simple things, such as breakfast, accomplished without incident. "Look, Sherlock! We made the front page," Amy said almost as if she was proud then reached under the table and squeezed Sherlock's knee. The offhand comment caused John to choke on his tea and Lestrade to stare back at Amy with wide eyes.  
"And you're excited by that?" Sherlock asked, cocking his eyebrow.

"That was sarcasm, stupid face," she replied and slowly released her grip on his kneecap, dragging her fingers lightly across the outside of his thigh as she returned her hand to the paper. Sherlock hadn't expected her insult to be so childish. Most of the time when he aggravated people, "piss off" was as puerile as it got. 'Stupid face' was in an entirely different realm of name calling but it seemed to entertain John and Lestrade who giggled and exchanged amused glances. Sherlock suddenly felt as if he was trying to solve a case with three toddlers to help him and he wanted to strangle all of them.

"So, Amelia," Lestrade said once he managed to contain his chuckling.

"It's just Amy," she corrected, "Amelia is a bit fairytale."

"Okay. _Amy_, we're going to have to ask you some questions about what happened to you," he replied and pulled out a small notebook and a pen from his jacket pocket.

"Oh, just let the poor girl have her breakfast and cuppa!" Mrs. Hudson scolded and swatted him with a dish towel. Sherlock let out a small laugh. He was glad someone else could see how childish Lestrade could be during cases.

"Mrs. Hudson, I don't want to keep your boys any longer than I have to," he pleaded.

"You can wait ten bloody minutes!" She replied and swatted him again. This time, Lestrade had tried to block her attack with his forearm but Mrs. Hudson maneuvered around him and swatted his shoulder. "Amy, dear, what would you like to eat?" she asked sweetly.

"I'll just have some toast," Amy told her. Mrs. Hudson patted her shoulder and went back in the kitchen and started rummaging around for some bread.

"You really should eat more than just toast," John told Amy in his concerned doctor voice. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"She can handle herself, Dr. Watson," he said knowing John hated when Sherlock caught him talking in the stereotypical caring doctor tone. He frequently denied that he did so, but Sherlock knew that wasn't true. When John's usual chat up lines didn't work at the women in the pubs, he would find some reason to use the doctor voice to charm them in to coming back to the flat or taking him home with them.  
"I forgot you were a doctor, John! _Dr. Watson,_" Amy teased. If Sherlock needed more proof of Amy's ordinariness, or another reason to avoid dealing with women all together, her amusement with _Dr. Watson _would be enough.

"Settle down, Miss Pond," Sherlock said and turned his gaze over to her. She looked up from the newspaper and met his eyes.

"So now I'm 'Miss Pond'?" She asked sharply. Clearly he had found a button to push if he wanted to make her tick. Sherlock smirked and sipped his tea without taking his eyes off hers. She looked as if she wanted to retaliate or call him some other schoolgirl insult but instead she went back to the newspaper, still fuming as she skimmed through it. When Mrs. Hudson delivered Amy's toast to her, Sherlock assumed victory as she ate silently. However, she only made it halfway through the second piece before throwing it down on her plate and gulping down the last few sips of her tea. She shot up from her seat and brushed the crumbs off her lap before turning to Sherlock. "A word, Mr. Homes?" she asked before storming away. Sherlock didn't think he could be much more cross as he stood up and followed her path to his room and slammed the door behind him.

"What is this about?" He demanded as he crossed the distance to where she stood with her hands on her hips and a scornful expression. Standing so that every inch of their bodies were almost touching at any given moment, he tried to elongate himself and dominate her. Being only a few inches taller than her made it difficult to be his usual intimidating self. Amy was quiet and thoughtful for a few moments before speaking.

"I have something to say to you," she told him after swallowing hard

"The floor is yours, Miss Pond," Sherlock told her sarcastically.

"First of all, none if this 'Miss Pond' rubbish. Since when do you call me by my surname?" Amy asked and cocked her head.

"I'm sorry, would you prefer Miss Williams?" He fired back at her. He watched all the confidence she had mustered fade. To avoid his gaze, she squeezed her eyes shut and hung her head. "You should know better than to think I wouldn't have known," he whispered darkly.

"Whatever you think you know is wrong, Sherlock," Amy said timidly.  
"Drop the act, Amelia," he said as he pulled her left hand off her hip and held it between his hands. Amy opened her eyes and watched him trace her ring finger with his thumb, sending chills down her spine. "You almost had me convinced that you were truly clever. You really did come so close. But you didn't did do a very good job of covering your tracks," he hissed.

"There's no point in covering up something I'm not trying to hide," Amy replied sternly.  
"How sweet of you," Sherlock laughed. "What a lucky fiance you have."

"I also don't see the point in covering up something I don't have," she said and looked up at Sherlock. He shook his head at her then dropped her hand and headed for the door. Amy quickly slipped between him and the door and leaned all her body weight against it so he couldn't leave. "You have it wrong, Sherlock," she tried to explain.

"You're just making a fool out of yourself," he replied and tried pulling the door opened again.

"Fine. Give me two minutes to prove it," Amy told him. Reluctantly, Sherlock let go of the doorknob and rested both of his hands against his lips, waiting for her to speak. "You must have seen the mark on my finger earlier, probably when we were in the bathroom. And the mark looks like it came from an engagement ring. It did. I was engaged until a few weeks ago."

"Convenient excuse," Sherlock retorted, refusing to believe such a poor alibi. She couldn't really expect to convince him with some line people always used to cover up their bad behavior.  
"It seems like it, but look at the mark. It's started to fade from where I haven't been wearing the ring. Had I just taken it off last night you could probably see the negative of what is engraved on the inside," she countered.

"And what is your brilliant explanation of your living situation? Most ex-fiances don't live with each other," Sherlock said, refuting her reasoning.

"Rory and I aren't most ex-fiances. We moved to London together for a fresh start and neither one of us can do it by ourselves. He's been my best friend since I was seven, and no one else could put up with having me as a flatmate." Amy said. Tears had started to well up and but she held them back and gave Sherlock a small smile. "But we both decided that this was what's best. We're not right for each other."

Sherlock analyzed every miniscule move Amy made, every word she spoke, and how she said each one, looking for red flags. Her story seemed too perfect, like it was something out of a book or crap telly. But there were no signs that what she was saying wasn't the truth and all the evidence supported it. In her usual fashion, Amy had left Sherlock mystified. "So if that wasn't what you had to tell me earlier, then what else do you have up your sleeve?" He asked her.

"Before we get to that and to avoid anything like this happening again, I have to ask," Amy said as she ghosted a her fingertips along his arm where the rolled up sleeves of his white button up shirt from the day before left his skin exposed. With her hand hovering around his wrist, she asked, "you don't have any secret girlfriends I should know about, do you?"

"No," he said. The green in Amy's hazel eyes seemed to brighten and her fingers grazed against his wrist. "Only one," he quipped just to get a rise out of her.

"This is probably one of the few times I'm asking you to be serious and you're making jokes," Amy said and shook her head in frustration but Sherlock could see a smile forming. She stepped away from the door and toward Sherlock, infiltrating his personal space. Normally he would have found a way to reinstate the distance but with Amy, everything reversed; he wanted to find a way to keep her close to him always. Something about her drew him in and made the distance undesirable. Every cell in his body wanted to lurch toward her and map all of her in his mind. But the bruises he knew were hiding under fabric and his cowardice held him back.

"Girlfriends aren't really my area," he said, giving her the same single sentence explanation he gave everyone on the rare occasion that the subject came up. Most people simply replied by nodding their head and awkwardly shuffling on to the next topic of conversation. It wasn't until he delivered this line to John that he realized how badly it could be misconstrued. He couldn't understand how ordinary people can't see what is right in front of them but they can overanalyze something until they saw things that weren't really there.

"Because they scare you or bore you?" Amy asked. "Or both?"

_Finally someone understands, _Sherlock thought, but he kept quiet. Answering would put him in a worse predicament than the one he he had just gotten out of. Telling her why the very idea of relationships bored him would just open the floor for her to tell him, and probably show him, why he was wrong and he'd already had enough of her doing that for one day. And telling her why they frightened him would be even worse. He wasn't ready to expose himself that much yet. Not to someone he didn't trust fully.  
"Because I've been busy. London is a big city full of criminals," he told her. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't exactly the truth. Nothing was forcing him to do detective work except for himself and his mind's constant appetite. It was criminals or cocaine, and he decided the former was the better of the two.

"London is a big city full of women who would kill to be with you," she countered. As she spoke, her hands guided his away from where they rested against his lips and down to her hips.  
"Like I said," he whispered as her hands slid up his arms and around his neck, "full of criminals."

"They're more interesting than a waitress at some Italian restaurant," Amy said.

"I'm not sure about that," he assured her. A devious smirk appeared on Amy's face then suddenly her hands were tangled in his hair and she was pulling him down to her. Her lips crashed in to his and took him by surprise. He wasn't sure if what they were doing, what _he _was doing, was okay. He realized the grip he had on her waist had tightened and he realized he didn't know where to touch her that wouldn't hurt. Under her pale skin, deep purple bruises hid like landmines waiting to be set off.

Amy pulled away just enough to speak. "Stop thinking," she scolded him breathlessly before kissing him again.

"I don't just have an off and on switch," he told her in frustration between kisses. Amy pulled away again and looked at him in disbelief.  
"Focus then," she replied, holding his face between her hands. "I know when you concentrate on something it consumes you. You can block out everything but what it is you've got your mind set on."

"Maybe when you're not covered in bruises," he said softly. Amy's face fell in disappointment and she dropped her hands from his cheeks. Taking one hand off her waist, he looked at his watch and frowned. "And we've got about a minute before they send John back here to check on us," he noted.

"Right," Amy nodded in defeat with her gaze fixed on the floor.

Sherlock tipped her chin up and gave her a small smile. He knew his actions caused her to second guess everything that had happened between him, it was written all over her face. For the first time, she was vulnerable in front of him. Even when she was laying in a hospital bed or limping around his flat earlier, she was still domineering as ever. But for that fleeting moment before she rolled her shoulders back and put her guard back up, Sherlock saw past her mysterious exterior. Everything she kept inside her made her all the more remarkable. She was someone that would continue to surprise him; she could keep him from being _bored. _

Gently, he returned his hand to her waist and pulled her in to him, placing a kiss on her forehead. He wasn't sure where this was going or how it would end up. The possibility of him mucking it up with Amy loomed on the horizon at every second. He was cold, he was selfish, and he was clueless when it came to romance, but he wanted her. Trying to fool himself out of thinking such was a waste of his time.  
"What was that for?" Amy asked quietly.

"Consider it an apology for my jumping to conclusions," Sherlock replied.  
"For being wrong," she corrected.

"Let's get back to the investigation before it gets brought to us, shall we?" he said, ignoring her remark. Amy rolled her eyes but a smile still tugged at the corners of her mouth.

The two of them returned to where they left John and Lestrade waiting and reclaimed their seats at the table without saying a word. Lestrade looked back and forth between the two as Sherlock snatched the newspaper back and Amy stole a sip of his tea before looking over to John. The doctor simply shrugged and shook his head, realizing that it would be pointless to try and keep up with Sherlock and Amy. He knew that there could only be two possible outcomes for the two of them; they would either fit each other perfectly and maybe Amy would get Sherlock to become a little more human, or they would completely destroy each other. John prayed that it would be the former.

"Is it alright if I ask you some questions now, Ms. Pond?" Lestrade asked cautiously after clearing his throat.

"Go ahead," Amy replied.

"Why don't you tell us what you remember from last night?" he suggested. Amy gave a solemn nod and began to retell the events of the night before.


End file.
